"Celt" Conjecture

[Rumo]

Interesting points. And certainly the term "Celt" must have had some significance amongst themselves if a man who tried to be King of Gaul was known as Celtillus.

Celtillus rather sounds like a Latin name. -llus/-lla is a diminutive suffix (e.g. Marcellus, Catullus, Metellus, Camillus). So it meant - to Romans! - something like 'little Celt'. Question is why Vercingetorix' father had a name which made sense to Romans.

Assuming it was nevertheless an indigenous name, it looks like it was altered through folk etymology, case in which there's no reliable *kelt root for an argument.

These people may very well be the same that inhabited the Oppida. Later (BG VI 24) he mentions that Gauls (Volcae Tectosages) are still living east of the Rhine. Thus there isn't any real contradiction between Caesars writings and archeology.

However archaeology does not show where the Gauls lived, it only gives an image of the material culture.

Let's read BG VI 24: ... now also they continue in the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use the same food and dress; but their proximity to the Province and knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to the Gauls many things tending to luxury as well as civilization.