The Archeological Celts
This brings us to the very interesting question as to whether or not we can equate ethnic groups with archaeological remains in the first place. If we cannot, then there is no justification for labelling materials as Celtic.
The Archaeological Celts, unlike both the historical and linguistic ones, are centred around temperate Europe north of the Alps, in modern day Switzerland, Austria, Bohemia, parts of Germany and parts of northern France; an area now commonly referred to as the ‘Celtic homeland’.
Archaeologists have associated two periods with the Celts, firstly the Hallstatt period, particularly Hallstatt D1 and D2-3 dating from c.600 - 450BC, followed by the even more closely associated La Tène period lasting from the fifth century BC until the Roman conquest. Hallstatt and La Tène are both sites discovered in the nineteenth century.
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| Hallstatt/La Tène homeland |
Hallstatt is named after a remote site in Austria’s Salzkammergut, south west of Salzburg, which contained a huge cemetery consisting of over 1000 burials. The material culture associated with it is usually credited with marking the beginning of the European Iron Age. The Hallstatt area is normally geographically split into an Eastern zone comprising parts of Austria, Moravia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia, and a Western zone including other parts of Austria, Switzerland, Bohemia, Germany, and eastern France. Hallstatt itself is on the border between these two. The Western zone is held to be Celtic. There is also an outlying area of northern Italy, home to the Golasecca culture, which has similarities with areas north of the Alps.
The west Hallstatt area is famous for its fortresses, such as the Heuneburg, which overlooks the Danube, and its princely burial tombs like the ones at Hochdorf, near modern day Stuttgart, and Vix, at Mont Lassois overlooking the River Seine. The burial tombs are believed to be the graves of high-ranking members of society, often associated with a nearby fortress.The prince or princess would be buried alongside grave goods, including, most distinctively, a four wheeled wagon, probably provided for the deceased’s journey into the next world. The finds at these sites date from the fifth and sixth centuries BC, and show evidence of links with the Mediterranean world, with both the Etruscans, and the Greeks.
A distinctive feature of the Heuneburg is its perimeter wall, updated in the early 6th century BC, and containing mud bricks which were common in the Mediterranean but completely alien north of the Alps. The wall is likely to have been built either by a Greek, or by someone who had been in contact with them and learned the technique from them.
At Hochdorf, the prince’s burial chamber contained, amongst many other things, a four wheeled wagon, a Greek cauldron used to drink mead, and a bronze couch, 2.75 metres long, where the prince was lying. The grave dates from about 530 BC.
At Vix was buried, not a prince, but a princess. This tomb contained, amongst other things, a wagon with the wheels removed, an Etruscan wine flagon and bowls, and an enormous Greek krater, 1.64 metres tall, made of bronze, and weighing 208 kgs. It could hold 1100 litres of wine. The Vix princess’s tomb dates from around 480 BC.
As these sites are contemporary with the first historical records of Celts made by the Greeks (see Historical Celts above), it would seem fair to wonder why there aren’t sites such as these inland from Marseilles, or beyond the pillars of Hercules, or in most of Iberia as far as Cadiz.
The most likely explanation for them being labelled Celtic at all by modern scholars is Herodotus’ statement that the Danube rises in the land of the Celts, but if he has incorrectly placed the source of the Danube in Iberia, then the geographical area labelled as Celtic in archaeology barely touches the geographical area labelled as Celtic by historical sources of the time.
La Tène is named after a site at Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, where over 2500 mostly metal objects have been found. The area central to the La Tène culture, despite the location of the site itself, is immediately above the west Hallstatt zone from Champagne to Bohemia. Britain first starts to show evidence of La Tène influence in the 4th or 3rd centuries BC, later than mainland Europe. The characteristic patterns of the La Tène style are what most people recognise as ‘Celtic’ art forms today.
Examples of La Tène art patterns:
Interestingly, the two ‘Celtic’ areas noted for their significant lack of La Tène material are Iberia and Ireland, both of which produced ‘Q-Celtic’ languages. A large part of southern Gaul is also lacking.
Ireland does have some evidence of La Tène, but it arrived late and may well have been introduced from northern Britain. Ireland in fact has a striking divide between north and south, with La Tène material evident in the north and absent from the south. Nothing illustrates this division better than the distribution of beehive quernstones shown below:
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| Map of beehive quernstone distribution in Ireland. Map taken from: Raftery, B. 1994, Pagan Celtic Ireland, London, Thames & Hudson |
This brings us to the very interesting question as to whether or not we can equate ethnic groups with archaeological remains in the first place. If we cannot, then there is no justification for labelling materials as Celtic anyway, but if we can, then we must have two groups, one with La Tène archaeology, and the other without.Under these circumstances, George Buchanan’s idea (see Linguistic Celts above) that the Celts introduced Gaelic from southern Gaul, while Brittonic shared a language with northern Gaul would seem very credible. Like every other theory on this issue, however, it is still speculation.