The Celtiberians are undoubtedly the people from ancient Hispania that have attracted the highest level of interest among scholars within the different disciplines (e.g. archaeologists, linguists, and historians). This critical review of the post-1998 literature on the Celtiberians has been divided into nine sections: the meaning of the word "Celtiberians",the Celtiberian language, the formation of the Celtiberian culture, population, Celtiberian migrations, economy, the study of rituals through an examination of ceramics, mortuary rituals, and Celto-mania and the Celtiberians.
The term "Celtiberian" is one of a number of compound words from antiquity (e.g. Celto- Ligurian, Lybian-Phoenician, Indo-Scythian, etc.) that arose as a definition of certain peoples who, according to external observers (usually Greek), displayed a set of ethnic characteristics that differed from those described by the individual terms comprising their names. For instance, the Helenic-Galatae were considered Gauls in Greek territory. However, there is a dual interpretation in the case of the Celtiberians. Based on data from Poseidonius, Diodorus ( Hist. Univ ., 5, 33, 38) defined them as a racial combination of Iberians and Celts.
This opinion was shared by Marcial of Bilbilis (L, X, Ep. 65), who considered himself a son of Celts and Iberians. On the other hand, Appian ( Iber. 2) affirmed that Celtiberians were Celts who had settled among the Iberians. This latter opinion was shared by Strabo (III, 4, 5), who made a reference to "the Celts who now call themselves Celtiberians and Berones". These "Celtiberians", along with the "Celts" of the Iberian Peninsula, have been termed "Hispanic-Celts" by Javier de Hoz (1988) (Fig.1 ).
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Celtiberians: Problems and Debates
