Theory that \'Celts\' are a myth

[Rumo]

Well, we couldn't really use only the names of the tribes, as there were hundreds of those, and there is such a small body of knowledge about the familial/tribal differences between, say, the Helvetii and the Lusitanii, the Nervii and Belgae, the Coritani and the Iceni, except from the ancient sources mentioned below, like Julius Caesar, whom some of the forum writers seem inclined to dismiss as irrelevant second-hand knowledge--without providing any first-hand knowledge to replace it with.

Two clarifications here:
- according to Caesar, tribes such as the Belgae weren't Celtic, and they did not call themselves Celts (he says that of Gauls only).
- Andrew Riggsby and others are not "some of the forum writers"; moreover such scholars usually also question the fact there was much first-hand knowledge or a general genuine interest in things barbarian

There was an ancient culturo-linguistic group that gradually migrated westward across much of Europe, and their contemporaries called them Keltoi, which became the word "Celt".

They were not a monolithic block of people who shared all attributes that we assign them (religious practice, material culture, etc.) but they did have some similarities.

At least one of the contemporary writers says that they called themselves Celts.

What's common in the material cultures of Iron Age Britain, Rhone valley and Hellenistic Anatolia? The material culture of neighbouring territories is sometimes similar, but it also can be different as suggested by Harry. Sometimes we find objects of Greek or Roman origin or inspiration, but certainly we don't think of those people as Greeks or Romans.
As for language, of the overwhelming majority of these tribes we only know their names. We are not sure those names which are "Celtic" (whatever this means - I suppose someone can find a securely attested Celtic word which looks similar enough) were used by those people in their self-description (did the Germans call themselves Germans?), and not given by neighbours or travellers (merchants, mercenaries). Even when we have words attested, often we can't tell if the language is indeed native or a second language used for whatever purpose. When barbarians speak Greek or Latin, we don't always think of them as Greeks or Romans, do we?

Many Greek and Roman authors described people being defined by climate, geography (sometimes separated by mountains, rivers or isolated in islands) and appearances (body height, weapons and armor, clothing, tattoos, hairstyles or merely hair color, diet, stereotypical appetites for violence, mysticism and heavy drinking, practicing polygamy, or in the remoter areas also cannibalism, etc) - see, for example, Tacitus with his Germans and Sarmatians. The mechanisms behind such rationalizations are multiple and complex, and are not related to "positivistic" attempts to understand the surrounding reality. Strabo considered the Cimbri and the Cimmerians one people, obviously through folk etymology (both names starting with Cim-). In this case we are quite certain no Cimbri migrated to the shores of Azov, but can we separate fact from fiction in all instances, especially when we have no other sources (testis unus ... )? In the end, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo and Julius Caesar himself were no National Geographic reporters!