Celtiberians

On the high plateau of north-central Spain, in today's provinces of Soria, Guadalajara, Zaragoza and Teruel, lived the Celtiberians, Celtic-speaking peoples of the last centuries BCE who wrote their language in a script borrowed from their Iberian neighbours. Fierce defenders of their fortified towns, they fought Rome for more than a century, and the siege of Numantia in 134 to 133 BCE became one of antiquity's best-known stands. Roman rule gradually absorbed them, but their place names still dot the map of Spain.

Ancient writers disagreed about who they were. Diodorus, Appian and Martial thought the name meant a mixture of Celts and Iberians after long wars, a view the archaeologist Barry Cunliffe dismisses as guesswork, while Strabo simply counted them as Celts. Modern definitions also vary. The Ebro marks a clear boundary with the non-Indo-European Iberians, and the tribes usually counted as Celtiberian are the Arevaci, Pellendones, Belli, Titti and Lusones, sometimes adding the Vaccaei, Carpetani and others. Their many inscriptions show that Celtiberian belonged to the Celtic family, within its Hispano-Celtic branch.

A Celtic presence in Iberia probably goes back to the sixth century BCE, when hilltop settlements known as castros acquired stone walls and ditches. Spanish archaeologists see developed Celtiberian culture growing out of this earlier castro culture. Their material culture shares much with the Celts of central Europe but also differs markedly from both the Hallstatt culture and La Tène. Cemeteries show rich aristocratic tombs in the sixth and fifth centuries giving way to warrior graves, and from the third century BCE fewer weapons were buried, perhaps as towns grew. A 2019 genetic study of three Celtiberians buried at La Hoya found more north-central European ancestry than among non-Celtic Iberians.

By the third century BCE the fortified town, or oppidum, had replaced the clan as the main political unit. Towns governed their own territories, struck coins and sealed alliances through inscribed hospitality pacts. A hereditary military aristocracy ruled, and the Arevaci, from strongholds such as Medinaceli, were the leading tribe. Celtiberian smiths were renowned: the Romans adopted their double-edged sword, and the Roman scholar Varro believed the Latin word lancea, a throwing spear, came from Hispania.

When Carthage and Rome fought for Spain, the Celtiberians were the most influential people of the interior. Many served Carthage as allies or mercenaries, some crossing the Alps with Hannibal, until Scipio Africanus won many tribes over to Rome. Part of Celtiberia was conquered in 195 BCE, and revolts followed in 195 to 193, 181 to 179, 153 to 151 and 143 to 133 BCE. In 154 BCE the town of Segeda defied Rome and its people fled to Numantia, where Roman armies suffered heavy losses, and in 137 BCE a consular army of 20,000 under Mancinus was forced to surrender.

In 134 BCE Scipio Aemilianus surrounded Numantia with walls, towers and seven camps, with an army said to number 60,000. After eight months the starving town gave in; according to Appian many inhabitants killed themselves, the survivors were enslaved and Numantia was razed. Celtiberian warriors later helped drive the Cimbri out of Spain in 105 BCE, and the Sertorian War of 80 to 72 BCE marked their last organised resistance to the Roman Republic. By 72 BCE all Celtiberia lay within the province of Hispania Citerior, and later Botorrita bronze plaques were written in Latin rather than Celtiberian.

Our maps for 1500, 1000 and 700 BCE draw an approximate Celtiberian area across the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, beside the Berbers of North Africa and the Urnfield cultures to the north. The people known as Celtiberians are attested only in the final centuries BCE, with Celtic presence in Iberia dated from about the sixth century BCE, so these early outlines are best read as a broad placeholder.