1. Introduction: beyond the mists: forging an ethnological approach to Celtic studies Bettina Arnold, and D. Blair Gibson; Part I. Celtic Political Systems: Research Paradigms: 2. From chiefdom to state organization in Celtic Europe Patrice Brun; 3. Building an historical ecology of Gaulish polities Carole L. Crumley; 4. The early Celts of west central Europe: the semantics of social structure Franz Fischer; Part II. Recovering Iron Age Social Systems: 5. The material culture of social structure: rank and status in early Iron-Age Europe Bettina Arnold; 6. The significance of major settlements in European Iron Age society Olivier Büchsenschütz; 7. Early 'Celtic' socio-political relations: ideological representation and social competition in dynamic comparative perspective Michael Dietler; Part III. The Question of Statehood in La Téne Europe: 8. States without centres? The Middle La Tène period in temperate Europe John Collis; 9. Late Iron-Age society in Britain and north-east Europe: structural transformation or superficial change? Colin Haselgrove; 10. Settlement and social systems at the end of the Iron Age Peter S. Wells; Part IV. Evolution and Ethnohistory: the Protohistoric Polities of Gaul and the British Isles: 11. Modelling chiefdoms in the Scottish Highlands and islands prior to the '45 Robert A. Dodgshon; 12. Caesar's perception of Gallic social structures Sean B. Dunham; 13. Chiefdoms, confederacies, and statehood in early Ireland D. Blair Gibson; 14. Clans are not primordial: pre-Viking Irish society and the modelling of pre-Roman societies in northern Europe Nerys Thomas Patterson.