The Arrival of the Ucenni in Oisans

After the first Ligurian presence, a new people gradually arrived in our mountains: the Celts, whom the Romans would later call the Gauls. Their movement southward began around 500 BCE, but it was probably much later that these groups reached a valley as remote as the upper Romanche or the Ferrand. In Oisans, these newcomers gained the upper hand over the Ligurian clans long established there. They did not make them disappear: they settled among them, mixed with local families, and eventually formed a new tribe known to ancient authors as the Ucenni. This Celto-Ligurian people eventually dominated a vast territory, from Livet to the Lautaret Pass. They developed mountain agriculture there and laid the foundations of the first permanent hamlets, on which the later communities occupying the Mizoën slope would depend. Their name left a lasting trace: the name “Oisans” derives from that of the Ucenni. Pliny the Elder mentions them among the tribes established in the Alps, proof that their identity was well recognized at the beginning of the Roman period.