Developed but Disunited
The Celts conducted a system of trade with one another, and launched the viticulture industry in the Bordeaux area of France, still famous two millennia later for its wines. Culturally, Celtic Europe spoke similar dialects and shared a common faith in Druidism. This religion held that spirits lived in the natural world, in its forests and streams. A powerful caste of priests conducted Druidic rites and rituals, which in some cases involved human sacrifice. Despite their numbers, the Celts were not politically united, and this was to prove their fatal flaw. Instead, tribes such as the Arverni were ruled by chiefs with absolute sovereignty over their peoples.
The Celtic world into which Vercingetorix was born in about 75 BC had evolved into a complex society which made military success and economic stability dependent on peasant agricultural labor, and vice versa. This system was the precursor of feudalism, a noble-peasant economic dependency that would dominate Europe for much of the Middle Ages. Vercingetorix hailed from a noble ruling family likely situated in what is now the town of Auvergny--a name reflecting its Celtic Arverni origins--in south-central Gaul, as France was then called.
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