scholarly journals Re-approaching Celts: Origins, Society, and Social Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Pope
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Social Understanding ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Central European ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene ◽  
Salt Trade

AbstractThis work re-approaches the origins of “the Celts” by detailing the character of their society and the nature of social change in Europe across 700–300 BC. A new approach integrates regional burial archaeology with contemporary classical texts to further refine our social understanding of the European Iron Age. Those known to us as “Celts” were matrifocal Early Iron Age groups in central Gaul who engaged in social traditions out of the central European salt trade and became heavily involved in Mediterranean politics. The paper focuses on evidence from the Hallstatt–La Tène transition to solve a 150-year-old problem: how the Early Iron Age “Celts” became the early La Tène “Galatai,” who engaged in the Celtic migrations and the sacking of Rome at 387 BC.

The Carnyx in Early Iron Age Britain

1959 ◽  
Vol 39 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 19-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Piggott
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene ◽  
Bronze Object

One of the most spectacular pieces of martial equipment in use among the Celtic peoples in the later stages of the La Tène culture was the animal-headed war-trumpet, the name of which, in Greek versions, has been preserved variously as karnon or karnyx. In the latter form, the name carnyx has been applied by archaeologists to the fairly plentiful representations and the very few surviving fragments of such instruments. Of the latter, the best-known is that represented today only by drawings and engravings, dredged from the river Witham at Tattershall Ferry in 1768. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss this object once again, and also to put forward the suggestion that the sheet-bronze object in the form of a boar's head, found at the beginning of the nineteenth century at Deskford in Banffshire and fortunately still surviving, is in fact the mouthpiece of another carnyx.

I.—Prehistoric and Roman Settlements on Park Brow

Archaeologia ◽  
1927 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garnet R. Wolseley ◽  
Reginald A. Smith ◽  
William Hawley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
South West ◽  
Disturbed Areas ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene ◽  
The Hill ◽  
The Bronze Age

In a paper describing the discovery and partial excavation of an Early Iron Age settlement on Park Brow Hill near Cissbury, published in the Antiquaries Journal, vol. iv, mention was made of the location of two other habitation sites on the hill—one Roman, and another probably occupied during the Bronze Age of Britain. It was to this latter site that I decided to attend in 1924, the object being to examine the relation between this settlement and that attributed to the Hallstatt–La Tène I period found on the top of the hill (see fig. a). The new site consists of a series of disturbed areas roughly circular, and lying on the slope of the hill facing south-west, about a furlong from the Hallstatt settlement (see fig. b).

scholarly journals Radiocarbon Dating of the Zagreb Upper Town Prehistoric Settlement

Radiocarbon ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogomil Obelić ◽  
Marija Šmalcelj ◽  
Nada Horvatinčič ◽  
Romana Bistrovič ◽  
Adela Sliepčević
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Wooden Structure ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Hallstatt Period

During the 1989–1994 renovation of the Zagreb Town Museum, it became obvious that the area was inhabited in prehistoric times. We 14C dated 40 samples to determine various settlement periods. The ages of the samples span a much longer time than expected, from the Early Iron Age (Hallstatt period) to the 19th century ad. 14C dates on charcoal samples placed the remains of dwelling pits in the Hallstatt period, 8th to 4th century bc. A late La Tène settlement dated between the 4th century bc and the 2nd century ad. Medieval fortifications were identified in the western part of the complex, consisting of a well-preserved wooden structure used for construction of the royal castrum. 14C measurements on wooden planks and posts date the construction of the fortification between the 13th and 15th centuries ad and branches, beams, and tools found below the basement of the Convent of St. Clare span the 16th to the 19th century ad.

scholarly journals Oppida, Agglomerations, and Suburbia: the Bibracte Environs and New Perspectives on Late Iron Age Urbanism in Central-Eastern France

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Moore ◽  
Arno Braun ◽  
John Creighton ◽  
Laura Cripps ◽  
Peter Haupt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
La Tène ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
La Tene

This paper explores the nature and chronology of La Tène and early Roman unenclosed agglomerations in central-eastern France. It has been prompted by the discovery of a c. 115 ha La Tène D2b/Augustan (c. 50 BC to AD 15) site close to Bibracte in the Morvan, located around the source of the River Yonne. This complex provides a new perspective on the chronology and role of Late La Tène and early Roman unenclosed settlements, adding further complexity to the story of the development of Late La Tène oppida. It indicates that these ‘agglomerations’ followed remarkably varied chronological trajectories, raising important issues concerning the nature of landscape and social change at the end of the Iron Age.

Status and Violence

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Visual Objects ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene

This chapter focuses on sword and scabbards. Swords were important visual objects, larger than most other objects in Bronze and Iron Age Europe, and their shape made them visually striking. Two parts of the sword were especially important in this regard. In the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, the hilt and pommel were often the vehicles for elaborate eye-catching ornament. When a sword was in its scabbard, whether worn at the side of the bearer, hanging on a wall, or placed in the burial chamber, the only parts of the weapon that were visible were the handle and its end. During the Middle and Late Iron Age, the scabbard became especially important as a vehicle for decorative elaboration. Bronze and Early Iron Age scabbards were mostly made of wood, and we do not, therefore have much information about how they were decorated. From the end of the Early La Tène period on, however, swords were long, and scabbards of bronze and iron offered extensive rectangular surfaces for decoration.

Swords and Scabbards of the British Early Iron Age

1950 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Piggott
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Comprehensive Treatment ◽  
Stylistic Development ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene ◽  
Metal Work ◽  
Basic Treatment

Although among our most striking antiquities, the swords and daggers of the British Early Iron Age, with their accompanying scabbards, have received no systematic study in the light of recent archaeology. The artistic qualities of many of the ornamented bronze scabbards had led to their becoming collectors' pieces from the 18th century onwards, and the basic treatment of the types (and indeed the only publication of many examples) is that of A. W. Franks when he was engaged in defining the ‘Late Celtic’ art style in his articles of 1863 and 1880. On this basis, Déchelette was able to include the British material in his classic treatment of European La Tène swords in 1914, and this was followed and amplified by R. A. Smith in 1925. Since then, the British scabbards have received incidental mention by such students of Iron Age metal-work as Leeds, Ward-Perkins and Fox, but they have not been treated as a group. The purpose of this paper is to review the available examples, to attempt a classification, and to determine the relationships of these products of the armourers' craft in Early Iron Age Britain to what is known of the stylistic development of other decorative metal-work, and to the areas of settlement and trade interchanges of the various Iron Age tribal groups or distinctive communities. The absence of any recent comprehensive treatment of the enormous series of continental La Téne swords, and the distinctively insular character of the British groups, has led me to restrict this study almost entirely to the British evolution, with the minimum reference to prototypes or parallel developments on the European mainland.

scholarly journals The Spirit of the Sword and Spear

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene

From the Norse sagas or the Arthurian cycles, we are used to the concept that the warrior's weapon has an identity, a name. In this article I shall ask whether some prehistoric weapons also had an identity. Using case studies of La Tène swords, early Iron Age central and southern Italian spearheads and middle and late Bronze Age type Boiu and type Sauerbrunn swords, I shall argue that prehistoric weapons could indeed have an identity and that this has important implications for their biographies, suggesting that they may have been conserved as heirlooms or exchanged as prestige gifts for much longer than is generally assumed, which in turn impacts our understanding of the deposition of weapons in tombs, where they may have had a ‘guardian spirit’ function.

Daggers of the Early Iron Age in Britain

1961 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 307-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. M. Jope
Keyword(s):  
Compact Group ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Southern England ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene ◽  
Made In

The daggers of the Early Iron Age in Britain are remarkable technical achievements, among them some of the earliest iron implements to be made in Britain. They deserve detailed study particularly for the light they throw on the prehistory of its earliest phase, the Iron Age ‘A’. The earlier daggers may be classified quite straightforwardly according to their analogies among the continental daggers, six with the Hallstatt-D and eighteen with the La Tène I, thus giving a dating scheme, from the 6th century to the later 4th century B.C. All these come from southern England, and form a compact group mostly from the Thames in its reaches for about 8 miles west of London.

scholarly journals Neither “Celtic” nor “Dacian”: The Site of Židovar at the Edges of La Tène, Carpathian and Roman Worlds

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir D. Mihajlović ◽  
Marko A. Janković
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
New Approach ◽  
First Order ◽  
Relational Networks ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene ◽  
Published Research ◽  
Evidential Basis

The paper reviews long-standing interpretation of the late Iron Age site of Židovar as “Celtic”, “Dacian” and “Celto-Dacian”. Arguing that this standpoint is derived from biased culture-historical ethno-determinism, the evidence is reconsidered from excavation journals of Branko Gavela and published research on Židovar. Evidential basis is discussed, such as sratigraphic difficulties and chronology, as well as some common misconceptions of the site’s characteristics. Deadlocks are emphasized regarding the conclusions on its ethnic belonging. The paper calls for a new approach that goes beyond ethno-cultural determinism and urges the employment of “relational locality”. This perspective considers the site and its immediate surroundings as the first order community, i.e. the spatio-social focal point entangled in diverse, multidirectional and supra-regional relational networks. This would mean that the community of Židovar actively mediated different templates coming from the “globalized” koines of La Tène Pannonian, Danubian-Carpathian and Roman worlds, and bricolaged them in distinctive local ways.

Central Europe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Metzner-Nebelsick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
La Tène ◽  
The Alps ◽  
La Tene

This chapter covers the area between eastern France and western Hungary, and from the Alps to the central European Mittelgebirge, following the established division between the early Iron Age (Hallstatt) and later Iron Age (La Tène) periods, beginning each section with a summary of the history of research and chronology. After characterizing the west–east Hallstatt cultural spheres, early Iron Age burial rites, material culture, and settlements are explored by region, including the phenomenon of ‘princely seats’. In the fifth century BC, a new ideological, social, and aesthetic concept arose, apparent both in the burial record, and especially in the development of the new La Tène art style. This period also saw the emergence of new, larger proto-urban forms of settlement, first unfortified agglomerations, and later the fortified oppida. Finally, the chapter examines changes in the nature and scale of production, material culture, and religious practices through the first millennium BC.

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