Ethnographic barbarity : colonial discourse and ‘Celtic warrior societies’

This paper aims to demonstrate the impact which Classical accounts of the wars of conquest fought in Northern Italy and, in particular, Gaul have had upon archaeological perceptions of Iron Age ‘Celtic’ societies. I will argue that two of the most common discursive statements embedded within Roman colonial discourse of the Other conjoined in the Late Republic to produce a construct which has constrained Iron Age studies ever since. The first of these discourses is that of barbarism, which ensured that levels of Celtic internicine warfare were exaggerated. [Taken from the introduction]