This name was give to them because of the beaker shape of their pottery which has been found. It was customary for them to bury their cremated dead in these beakers.

The earliest Beaker remains were found by Professor Brian O' Kelly at New Grange, Ireland, while he was excavating and restoring the site.

Beaker pottery is now also known in mainland Europe from Iberia to Poland and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Baltic.

The view of many archeologists and Historians, most notably Myles Dillon, is that the Beaker people were the first Celts. This of course is all theoretical, we do not have documented evidence of it.

Links have also been found with the people of the Battle Axe Culture, in the Steppes of Russia. This culture had strong horse assosiations, as did the Celts.

It is believed that these two cultures merged somewhere around 1600 to 1400 BC. This union is known as the Tumulus or Unitice culture.

Circa 1200 BC there was a worldwide deterioration in weather. This prompted a need for improved skills a change in tools and implements and indeed in a way of life.

It is about this time that this Tumulus culture changes to Urnfield or North Alpine Culture. Due to the change in weather people were forced to move to using mixed agriculture. The Urnfield culture revolutionized metal work from making pottery moulds to casting metal.

There was very little difference between the Urnfields and the Celts. All of the above cultures are known as Proto Celts.

It is only from the end of the 6th century BC that mention of a barbarian people corresponding to the Celts occurs. It comes first from Greek and later from Roman sources.

While this is a relatively late date these accounts almost certainly rely on older sources which would take us back several centuries before the date that they were written.

It has been argued that the name Keltoi, used by the Greeks when speaking of barbarians to the north of them, actually refered to the Hallstatt people and that it gradually became adopted by the inhabitants of the North Alpine cultural and linguistic province.