‘Our Ancestors the Gauls’: Archaeology, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Manipulation of Celtic Identity in Modern Europe (1994)

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Dietler
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Ancient Iron ◽  
Bronze Statue ◽  
Napoleon Iii ◽  
Invented Traditions ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

These words are taken from Julius Caesar’s account of his war of conquest against the Celtic peoples of Western Europe in the first century BC. He attributed them to his enemy Vercingetorix, leader of the last great defence of Gaul against the Roman legions. More important in the context of the present discussion, they are inscribed at the base of a monumental bronze statue of Vercingetorix that surmounts the hilltop fortress of Alésia in Burgundy, the site of the final stand against the Romans. The French emperor Napoleon III commissioned the statue in 1865, and he also lavishly financed archaeological excavations at the site. Over a century later, in 1985, standing in the middle of the nearby ancient hilltop fortress of Bibracte (Mont Beuvray), where Vercingetorix had attempted to rally a united opposition against the Romans, French president François Mitterrand launched an appeal for national unity. Stating that Bibracte was the place where the ‘first act of our history took place’ (Mitterrand 1985: 54), he officially declared it a ‘national site’. A monument was also erected to commemorate his visit, and archaeological excavations were begun with financing on an unprecedented scale. It is my contention that such appeals to an ancient Celtic past have played, and continue to play, a number of important and often paradoxical roles in the ideological naturalization of modern political communities at several contradictory levels, including: (1) pan-European unity in the context of the evolving European Community, (2) nationalism within member states of that community, and (3) regional resistance to nationalist hegemony. An understanding of this complex process requires exploration of the ways in which language, objects, places, and persons have been differentially emphasized to evoke antiquity and authenticity at each of these levels in the process of constructing and manipulating emotionally and symbolically charged traditions of Celtic identity. As an archaeologist specializing in the study of those societies of ancient Iron Age Europe that serve as a touchstone of authenticity in the invocation of Celtic identity, I have an interest in examining the ways that archaeology has been appropriated, or has collaborated, in these ‘invented traditions’ (Hobsbawm 1983), and its potential role in sorting out the competing claims of what Benedict Anderson (1983) has called ‘imagined communities’.

Caucasian, Iranian and Urartian Bronze Bells

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-104
Author(s):  
Manuel Castelluccia ◽  
Roberto Dan
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Metal Object ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
Reciprocal Influences ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

AbstractThis paper presents a review of metal “bells”, a category of metal object often found in Iron Age archaeological contexts of Caucasian, north Iranian and Urartian cultures. Each cultural sphere is considered separately, focusing on material brought to light during archaeological excavations. An analysis of these three different traditions allows comparison of these artifacts in order to detect evidence of contacts and reciprocal influences between these cultural regions, which strongly interacted during the first half of the Iron Age.

scholarly journals Astronomy, culture and landscape in the Early Iron Age in the Ebro Basin

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S278) ◽  
pp. 382-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Pérez Gutiérrez ◽  
Jordi Diloli Fons ◽  
David Bea Castaño ◽  
Samuel Sardà Seuma
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Golden Ratio ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Ebro Basin ◽  
Cultural System ◽  
Measurement Units ◽  
Complete Series ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

AbstractArchaeological excavations carried out at Turó del Calvari (Tarragona, Spain) have revealed a protohistoric building interpreted as one of the earliest enclosures of power operating during the Early Iron Age in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. The structure is exceptional in several respects: the techniques of construction, the materials used, and the topographic situation. The building is perfectly integrated in the landscape and has an exquisite geometrical design, with measurement units based on the Iberian foot. The intended beauty in having used the golden ratio in its construction and an orientation that is both stellar and solar demonstrates the existence at that time of a complete series of mechanisms of representation and territorial control. This was based on the use of rituals and feasts as elements of political cohesion by an emergent elite within a process that reproduced a scaled-down Mediterranean cultural system in an indigenous space.

scholarly journals The advance of cultivation at its northern European limit: Process or event?

The Holocene ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Lahtinen ◽  
Markku Oinonen ◽  
Miikka Tallavaara ◽  
James WP Walker ◽  
Peter Rowley-Conwy
Keyword(s):  
Population Size ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Pollen Analysis ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Limit Process ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Complex Process

Dates for early cultivation in Finland obtained from pollen analysis and remains from archaeological sites are compared with the changes in population size derived from the summed calendar-year probability distributions. The results from these two independent proxies correlate strongly with one another indicating that population size and the advance of farming were closely linked to each other. Moreover, the results show that the adaptation and development of farming in this area was a complex process comprising several stages and with major differences between regions The most intensive expansion having occurred in and after the Iron Age. It is therefore more accurate to describe the introduction of farming into the area as a long-lasting process, rather than an event.

Mediated diffusion in Iron Age Europe

Antiquity ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 84 (325) ◽  
pp. 880-883
Author(s):  
N. James
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Sociopolitical Development ◽  
Regional Power ◽  
The South ◽  
Three Generations ◽  
Middle Iron Age ◽  
Rhone Valley ◽  
North Western

Diffusion of Mediterranean traits to central and north-western Europe during the middle Iron Age is a topic well rehearsed now by three generations of archaeologists. The stimulating recent exhibition Golasecca at the Musée d’Archéologie nationale in France, showed that – funds permitting – plenty of scope remains for research.Elaborately made imports, at for instance the Heuneburg, Vix or Hochdorf, have been interpreted as evidence for how aristocrats adopted Greek and Etruscan styles to reinforce their status and regional power between about 600 and 400 BC. Art historians revealed how their bronzesmiths responded selectively to templates from not only states to the south but also eastern nomads. Archaeologists worked out how goods were brought up the Rhône valley by the enterprising Greeks of Marseille or by the northerners themselves exploiting that colony. The ‘trade’ is thought to have encouraged development of social complexity. More recently, to demonstrate the recipients’ ‘agency’, attention has focused on potters’ responses, adoption of coinage and writing and ‘feasts’ for chiefs to show off ‘prestigious’ exotica to rivals, clients or tributaries. Similar models of trade, ‘appropriation’ and sociopolitical development have been developed for the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age.

Plant remains from Jiyeh/Porphyreon, Lebanon (seasons 2009–2014): preliminary results of archaeobotanical analysis and implications for future research

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 487-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Badura ◽  
Ewelina Rzeźnicka ◽  
Urszula Wicenciak ◽  
Tomasz Waliszewski
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Plant Remains ◽  
Residential Quarter ◽  
Unknown Area ◽  
Mediterranean Archaeology ◽  
Archaeological Excavations ◽  
Over Time

The seaside settlement of Jiyeh in Lebanon, now identified with the ancient Porphyreon, boasts a history dating back to the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age when Phoenicia occupied part of the Levantine coast (eastern Mediterranean). Extensive archaeological excavations by a team from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw have focused on the urban residential quarter, which consists of numerous houses and buildings separated by passages, containing material that has provided important insights into the lives of its inhabitants over time. However, as archaeobotanical studies had not been conducted there before, the question of plant use remains an important and largely unknown area of research. This article presents the first botanical results from Jiyeh (seasons 2009–2014) and considers their implications for future cooperation between archaeologists and natural scientists.

The invasion hypothesis in Irish prehistory

Antiquity ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 52 (205) ◽  
pp. 121-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Waddell
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
General Picture ◽  
Ellis Island ◽  
Megalithic Tombs ◽  
Mesolithic Period

A glance at the archaeological literature of the last dozen years demonstrates all too clearly that the popularity of the 'invasion hypothesis' in Irish archaeology is quite undiminished. An almost incessant stream of immigrants appears to have tramped ashore from the Mesolithic period to the Iron Age. Even reckoning those pre-eminent invaders, the Beaker Folk, as merely a single influx, over a dozen significant prehistoric population movements are claimed by a variety of writers. The general picture presented suggests that Ireland throughout much of her prehistory was, if not an archaeological Ellis Island, at least a desirable landfall for the land-hungry, the dispossessed and the adventurous of most of the rest of Western Europe. Major changes and innovations in the archaeological record-in monument or artifact typemay conceivably be the result of either independent invention, or diffusion or of a combination of the two. The occurrence of megalithic tombs in very different cultural and chronological contexts in Western Europe, India and Japan, for example, is an instance of independent invention.

scholarly journals RESEARCH OF BATYRBEK MOUNDS ON NARYN SAND

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marat Kasenov
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Sandy Loam ◽  
Northwestern Part ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
West Kazakhstan ◽  
Western Side ◽  
Clay Rocks ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

The article presents the results of archaeological excavations on the Batyrbek Mound on the Naryn sand. The Naryn sands are located in the northwestern part of the Caspian Basin, between the Volga and Ural rivers. Administrative covers Isatai Was Makhambet areas of Atyrau region and the southern part of Bokey Orda, Zhangala and Akzhaiyk parts of the West Kazakhstan region. The area is 40 thousand km 2. The sandy zone is on average 21 m below sea level. The region is formed by deposits of the Khvalyn and Khazar periods of the Caspian Sea. Consists of arrays Batbayar, Botany, Condulet, Manteca Arcticum, Zhamankum Horde. The north-East is occupied by the Kamyshovo-Samara floodplain. Often the wind blows, a dust storm. A river with a constant flow of no streams. Fresh water reserves underground (at a depth of 1.5-2 m) are plentiful. There are many wells and oases. The spring floodplain runoff of Karaozen and Saryozen sometimes irrigates the northern side of the Naryn sand. The soil cover consists mainly of pale brown, sandy loam, and salt-gray soils[1]. In September 2019, excavations were carried out of 2 burial grounds dating back to the Iron Age, located 3.36 km south of the village of Batyrbek, located on the north-western side of the Kurmangazinsky district of Atyrau region. In archaeological excavations, tombs typical of the Iron Age were discovered. 4 graves were discovered, buried in the late period. The article covers the research of these mounds. The mounds are found in the northwestern part of the Naryn sand, in the steppe areas of «takyr», consisting of hard clay rocks. There were hundreds of Iron Age burial mounds in these areas. The mound was excavated for the first time.

scholarly journals AMAZONS IN VIKING AGE

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
O. Ye. Fialko
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Demographic Expansion ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Small Series ◽  
Age Range ◽  
The Military ◽  
Social Level

Amazons are usually associated with the period of the early Iron Age. However, a large number of graves of armed women of the early Middle Ages are known in the territory of Eurasia. In the Scandinavian countries, the period of the 9th — the first half of the 11th centuries was called the «Viking Age». This period is related to the military, commercial and demographic expansion of the Scandinavians. During the archaeological researches, burials of women with weapons were recorded in the cemeteries of Denmark, Norway and Southern Sweden. They constitute a small series of 16 funerary complexes. Typically, the female warriors were buried in individual graves, and only occasionally they were accompanied by a woman or a child. Only in two cases armed man and woman of equal social level were placed in one grave. In the necropolis, the graves of the Amazons are usually localized among the military graves. On the territory of Western Europe, both rites of burial of warriors — inhumation and cremation are registered. The age range of female warriors is quite wide — from 10 to 50—60 years, with the domination of young women. The material complex showed that women’s weapons were intended for both remote (bows and arrows, spears) and close combat (swords, knives, axes). And in this period preference was given to axes. Several graves of female warriors were accompanied by a horse or a set of horse ammunition. This means that women could also fight in the equestrian battles. Based on the range and the number of weapons, the Amazons of the Viking Age mainly were part of the lightly armed units. These women took up arms on a par with men in moments of acute necessity — periods of seizing of new territories or defending their lands from an external enemy.

scholarly journals The remains of a prehistoric dugout from Skorbičy (Družba) Village in the Buh River region

2020 ◽  
pp. 72-82
Author(s):  
Vitali U. Asheichyk ◽  
Vadzim G. Beliavets
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Design Features ◽  
The Third ◽  
River Region ◽  
Archaeological Excavations ◽  
Radiocarbon Datings

The article discusses the remains of a prehistoric dugout discovered at the edge of a sand quarry near Skorbičy (Družba) Village, Brest District, Belarus in 2013. It was impossible to extract and conserve the boat due to heavy decomposition of wood, but its shape and design features were documented during the archaeological excavations. The boat measured 3.75 × 0.65 m was made from hollowed pine trunk. There were bulkheads near the boat’s bow and stern, and there was a low rib along the bottom on the inside. The bottom and boards were most likely tarred on the outside. There were some dozens of fieldstones inside the boat, on its bow and stern. Some of them were burnt. Five small potsherds of the Iron Age were found in the eastern part of the dugout. Three radiocarbon datings were obtained for the samples of wood from the dugout. Two datings are almost identical and date the boat back from 480 to 210 cal BC. The third one is discordant and has calibrated range from 200 BC to 80 AD. Considering the archaeological context and the results of previous investigations of the archaeological sites in Skorbičy, the earlier dating could be assumed. The dugout is most probably connected with the population of the Pomeranian culture.

scholarly journals KERAMIČKI NALAZI S LOKALITETA GLAVICE – STARA POVLJANA U KONTEKSTU PRAPOVIJESNIH NASELJA NA OTOKU PAGU

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Morana Vuković ◽  
Zrinka Serventi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Arable Field ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
Prehistoric Settlements ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

Numerous remains of ceramic vessels were discovered during the archaeological excavations carried out in 2012 at the site of Glavice near Stara Povljana on the island of Pag. Some of these finds can be attributed to the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (indicated also by the finds of Venetian coins), and others are clearly dated to the prehistoric period, predominantly Iron Age. The aforementioned remains were discovered around and even within the heavily damaged dry stone structures, which, although they cannot be precisely dated to either prehistoric or later periods, indicate the longevity of use of this site for habitation. Due to the context of these finds it is highly possible that the prehistoric settlement was organized on the plateau below the nearby hill and adjacent to the arable field, which is considered to be atypical for the area and indicates a possible change in settlement placement patterns. Therefore, in this paper we shall analyse fragments of prehistoric vessels, their consistency, typology and decorations, and place them in the context of prehistoric finds in the wider territory as well as evaluate the importance of this site in the overall distribution of prehistoric settlements on the island of Pag.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document