The Celts: search for a civilization

History tells us a lot about the Greek and Roman empires. However they were not the only peoples living in Europe and western parts of Asia at that time. A general term for many of these, often different, groups of people is Celts but who were they and where did they come from?

Alice Roberts in The Celts: search for a civilization sets out to discover who the people we refer to as Celts really were and any cohesion that might exist between different groups of Celtic people. Existing knowledge about the Celts comes from references to them in Greek and Roman works. The Greeks and Romans each had a written language which provided their viewpoint on the world around them. However to the Greeks and Romans the Celts were inferior peoples, often considered invading savages.

In this book Alice Roberts sets out to explore what is known about the lives of the Celts through past and continuing archaeological excavations, historical information about these people, the ethnic and biological studies as well as linguistic investigations. Although similarities are often found there are also differences between Celtic peoples in parts of Europe.

In later chapters the author investigates recent theories that some of the earliest Celtic settlements may have been in Portugal and not eastern Europe. The settlements near the Mediterranean coast and the Atlantic Ocean were centres for trade throughout Europe, including Britain and Ireland, from earliest times. Peoples from these regions could have merged with people in countries they visited for trade. It is also believed that Celtic peoples crossed over into Britain via Scandinavian counties.

We will probably never know the full history of the various Celtic groups but study can still be done investigating archaeological finds, bones, art, and other clues to the lives of these people in our history and in the ancestors of Celtic groups today.

Ancestors: the prehistory of Britain in seven burials

Who were the first people to live in what is now called England? When did they come? Where did they come from? We will probably never know the answers to these questions but archaeology and anthropology can help uncover some information about the past.

Professor Alice Roberts, who first came to our attention in the early days of Time Team, uses the case studies of seven ancient burials dating back thousands of years that have been discovered in England. Many of these discoveries were made hundreds of years ago but re-examining the bones, rereading the accounts of the discoveries and using new scientific methods to analyse the bones can provide new information.

Alice Roberts discusses the story of the discovery of seven ancient burials and what they can tell us. By doing so she provides an insight into the world of archaeologists and anthropologists working in this field. She also discusses changes in burial practices through the centuries.

Tears of the moon

In 1999 Nora Roberts wrote the first book in the Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy - Jewels of the Sun. This was followed by Tears of the Moon and Heart of the Sea. I came across Tears of the Moon by accident as I was really looking for a book with the same title by Di Morrissey. Having reserved the Nora Roberts title in error I decided to read it anyway, even though I am not really a fan of Romance novels.

The books are set in Ireland and throughout the three volumes runs the story of a Faerie Prince who has waited three hundred years to remove a curse preventing him from being with the woman he loved. Each of the volumes centres on a member of the Gallagher family as they choose life partners.The main characters are aware of this local story as well as of the ghost who inhabits a cottage owned by the family.

In Tears of the Moon the main characters are musician and co-owner of Gallaghers' pub, Shaun Gallagher, and Brenna O'Toole, a childhood friend who runs a business with her father building and repairing buildings and cars. The story revolves around the development of this unlikely relationship as the characteres eventually realise what they really want from life, often via intervention from the fantasy thread of the story. I would not rule out eventually reading the other volumes in the series - one day.