High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The term pre-Celtic refers to the period in the prehistory of Central and Western Europe postdating the emergence of Proto-Celtic and predating the expansion of the Celts, or Celtic culture, in the course of the earlier Iron Age (9th to 6th centuries BC). The area involved is that of the maximum extent of Celtic languages in about the mid 1st century BC. The extent to which "Celtic" language, culture and genetics coincided and interacted during this period remains very uncertain and controversial.