Bourges in the Earlier Iron Age: An Interim View
Berry in central France figures frequently in assessments of the level of complexity in western temperate Europe at the annexation of Gallia comata in 52 BC. Information from a number of sites, particularly Levroux (Indre: e.g. Büchsenschütz et al. 1988; 1992; 2000; Krausz 1993), contributes to what is now a tolerably well-understood pattern, contrasting markedly with the poorly known settlement record for the earlier Iron Age of the area. One site forms a conspicuous exception. For the end of the Hallstatt Iron Age and the initial phase of its successor—broadly the decades either side of 500 BC— Bourges (Cher) is now known to be of critical importance, not only in regional terms, but also as a variant of the elite phenomenon known as the Fürstensitze that occurs widely across west-central temperate Europe. It will come as no surprise that the first English-language author to recognize the emerging importance of this site was Barry Cunliffe in The Ancient Celts, and it is thus with pleasure that this interim statement on Bourges and its immediate hinterland at the time of the transition from the Hallstatt to La Tène Iron Age has been prepared. Since 1995, with Jacques Troadec, the municipal archaeologist, Olivier Büchsenschütz, Pierre-Yves Milcent and others, the author has been excavating within and on the periphery of Bourges—by the first century BC certainly Avaricum of the Bituriges—as part of a long-term rescue project on that site and its surroundings. A few, selected aspects of this are considered below. The pace of development, and evolving legislative arrangements for rescue archaeology, mean that other important sites in the commune have been examined by Alexis Luberne and colleagues in the State Archaeological Rescue Service, INRAP, and reference to some of their work is included below. The rate of change in and around the city, particularly as military establishments—many initially set up at the time of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war—are redeveloped for light industry, and new housing, transport and other infrastructure is constructed, provides much scope for new discoveries; what follows is thus by necessity provisional.