Gaul is a historical name used in the context of Ancient Rome in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. . Gauls under Brennus defeated Roman forces in a battle circa 390 BC. The peak of Gaulish expansion was reached in the 3rd century BC, in the wake of the Gallic invasion of the Balkans of 281-279 BC. During the 2nd and 1st century BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule. Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC, Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded by the Cimbri and the Teutons after 120 BC, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 101 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC. Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries, until the last Roman rump state, the Domain of Soissons, fell to the Franks in AD 486. During this time, The Celtic culture had become amalgamated into a Gallo-Roman culture and the Gaulish language was likely extinct by the 6th century. There have been attempts to trace Keltoi and Galatai to a single origin. It is most likely that the terms originated as names of minor tribes * Kel-to and/or Gal(a)-to- which were the earliest to come into contact with the Roman world, but which have disappeared without leaving a historical record. The name is sometimes linked to the name Gael,[by whom?] which is, however, derived from Old Irish Goidel (derived, in turn, from Old Welsh Guoidel "Irishman", now spelled Gwyddel, from a Brittonic root *Wēdelos "), and cannot be directly related. Josephus claimed that the Gauls were descended from Gomer, the grandson of Noah. Hellenistic etiology connects the name with Galatia (first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenion in the 4th c. BC), and it was suggested that the association was inspired by the "milk-white" skin (γάλα, gala, "milk") of the Gauls (Greek: Γαλάται, Galatai, Galatae). . They are rather derived from the Germanic term walha, an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts, likely via a Latinization of Frankish *Walholant "Gaul", literally "Land of the Foreigners/Romans", making it partially cognate with the name Wales), the usual word for the non-Germanic-speaking peoples (Celtic-speaking and Latin-speaking indiscriminately). Concerning the peoples that inhabited these regions - and the relationships between their material culture, genetic relationships (the study of which has been aided, in recent years, through the field of archaeogenetics), and linguistic divisions rarely coincide. It seems as if they derived many of their skills (like metal-working), as well as certain facets of their culture, from Balkan peoples. Some scholars think that the Bronze Age Urnfield culture represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European-speaking peoples . The Urnfield culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from ca. 1200 BC until 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture (ca. 700 to 500 BC) directly from the Urnfield. Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered by some scholars to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures. The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture, which developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan civilizations. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Hungary. Farther north extended the contemporary Pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, France was called Gaul (Gallia Transalpina) by the Romans. In his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul: the Belgae in the north (roughly between Rhine and Seine), the Celts in the center and in Armorica, and the Aquitani in the southwest, the southeast being already colonized by the Romans. While some scholars believe that the Belgae south of the Somme had Germanic elements. One of the reasons is political interference upon the French historical interpretation during the 19th century. French historians adopted fully the explanation of Caesar who stated that Gaul stretched from the Pyrenees up to the Rhine in the north. This fitted the French expansionist aspirations of the time under Napoleon III. In the north of (modern) France, the Gaul-German language border was situated somewhere between the Seine and the Somme. Northern Belgic tribes like the Nervians, Atrebates or Morini appear to be Germanic tribes who migrated from the Germanic hinterland and adopted Celtic language and customs, as all of the names of their leaders and towns are Celtic.

• published: 31 Jul 2010
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