But were the short, brachycephalic folk Celts? Cæsar says the people who
call themselves "Celtæ" were called Gauls by the Romans, and Gauls,
according to classical writers, were tall and fair.[11] Hence the Celtæ
were not a short, dark race, and Cæsar himself says that Gauls
(including Celtæ) looked with contempt on the short Romans.[12] Strabo
also says that Celtæ and Belgæ had the same Gaulish appearance, i.e.
tall and fair. Cæsar's statement that Aquitani, Galli, and Belgæ differ
in language, institutions, and laws is vague and unsupported by
evidence, and may mean as to language no more than a difference in
dialects. This is also suggested by Strabo's words, Celtæ and Belgæ
"differ a little" in language.[13] No classical writer describes the
Celts as short and dark, but the reverse. Short, dark people would have
been called Iberians, without respect to skulls. Classical observers
were not craniologists. The short, brachycephalic type is now prominent
in France, because it has always been so, eliminating the tall, fair
Celtic type. Conquering Celts, fewer in number than the broad and
narrow-headed aborigines, intermarried or made less lasting alliances
with them. In course of time the type of the more numerous race was
bound to prevail. Even in Cæsar's day the latter probably outnumbered
the tall and fair Celts, who had, however, Celticised them. But
classical writers, who knew the true Celt as tall and fair, saw that
type only, just as every one, on first visiting France or Germany, sees
his generalised type of Frenchman or German everywhere. Later, he
modifies his opinion, but this the classical observers did not do.
Cæsar's campaigns must have drained Gaul of many tall and fair Celts.
This, with the tendency of dark types to out-number fair types in South
and Central Europe, may help to explain the growing prominence of the
dark type, though the tall, fair type is far from uncommon.[14]