Ancient Europe: Celts: Hallstatt Culture, 800-450 BC

Introduction

From The Celtic World, (1995):

During the eighth century BC, new elements in material culture began to manifest themselves in central Europe. New metal types associated with horse-gear and riding are indicative of the presence of warrior-horsemen, who might be regarded as the antecedents of the Celtic ‘equites’, the horse-owning knights alluded to by Caesar in his Gallic War. These early iron age cavalrymen used long slashing swords, sometimes made of bronze, sometimes of iron. This new material culture has been called ‘Hallstatt’, after the so-called type-site, a great cemetery at Hallstatt in Austria, which housed the bodies of local people involved in salt-mining, trading and the control of the Salzkammergut’ (salt-route) of the region around modern Hallein. this cemetery was first used during the later Bronze Age, but also produced large quantities of rich metalwork belonging to the earliest Iron Age. The same distinctive artefact-types found at Hallstatt have been recognised over wide areas of Europe. The Bronze Age material from the site has been designated Ha A and B and that of the Early Iron Age, Ha C and D. It is the material culture of the later Hallstatt, Iron Age, phases which is often considered to be the earliest evidence of the European Celts. This Hallstatt tradition is distinctive in the archaeological record for its wealth and its clear evidence for close trading links with the classical world. The upper echelons of society in the seventh and sixth centuries BC are represented by rich inhumation burials, like those of Hohmichele and Hochdorf in Germany and Vix in Burgundy, the dead often being interred in wooden mortuary houses, accompanied by four-wheeled wagons, weapons and luxury goods, including jewellery and feasting equipment, some of which came from the Mediterranean world. Little is known of the smaller settlements inhabited by these early iron age communities, but large fortified centres, like the Heuneburg near the Hohmichele grave and Mont Lassois near Vix, are presumed to have been the dwelling-places, and perhaps the power bases, of the high-ranking individuals buried nearby.

Green, M. 'The Celtic World’. Routledge, 1995. p.5-7.

From Wikipedia:

'Antenna hilt' swords

The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western and Central European culture of Early Iron Age Europe from the 8th to 6th centuries BC, developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC (Late Bronze Age) and followed in much of its area by the La Tène culture. It is commonly associated with Proto-Celtic and Celtic populations in the Western Hallstatt zone and with (pre-Illyrians in the eastern Hallstatt zone). [1]

It is named for its type site, Hallstatt, a lakeside village in the Austrian Salzkammergut southeast of Salzburg, where there was a rich salt mine, and some 1,300 burials are known, many with fine artefacts. Material from Hallstatt has been classed into 4 periods, numbered "Hallstatt A" to "D". Hallstatt A and B are regarded as Late Bronze Age and the terms used for wider areas, such as "Hallstatt culture", or "period", "style" and so on, relate to the Iron Age Hallstatt C and D.

By the 6th century BC, it had expanded to include wide territories, falling into two zones, east and west, between them covering much of western and central Europe down to the Alps, and extending into northern Italy. Parts of Britain and Iberia are included in the ultimate expansion of the culture.

The culture was based on farming, but metal-working was considerably advanced, and by the end of the period long-range trade within the area and with Mediterranean cultures was economically significant. Social distinctions became increasingly important, with emerging elite classes of chieftains and warriors, and perhaps those with other skills. Society was organized on a tribal basis, though very little is known about this. Only a few of the largest settlements, like Heuneburg in the south of Germany, were towns rather than villages by modern standards.

Culture and Trade

Hochdorf Chieftan's Grave

It is probable[7][8][9] that some if not all of this diffusion took place in a Celtic-speaking context.[10] In northern Italy the Golasecca culture developed with continuity from the Canegrate culture.[11][12] Canegrate represented a completely new cultural dynamic to the area expressed in pottery and bronzework making it a typical western example of the western Hallstatt culture.[11][12]

The Lepontic Celtic language inscriptions of the area show the language of the Golasecca culture was clearly Celtic making it probable that the 13th-century BC precursor language of at least the western Hallstatt was also Celtic or a precursor to it.[11][12] Lepontic inscriptions have also been found in Umbria,[13] in the area which saw the emergence of the Terni culture, which had strong similarities with the Celtic cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène.[14] The Umbrian necropolis of Terni, which dates back to the 10th century BC, was identical under every aspect, to the Celtic necropolis of the Golasecca culture.[15]

Trade with Greece is attested by finds of Attic black-figure pottery in the elite graves of the late Hallstatt period. It was probably imported via Massilia (Marseilles).[16] Other imported luxuries include amber, ivory (Gräfenbühl) and probably wine. Recent analyses have shown that the reputed silk in the barrow at Hohmichele was misidentified. Red kermes dye was imported from the south as well; it was found at Hochdorf.

The settlements were mostly fortified, situated on hilltops, and frequently included the workshops of bronze-, silver-, and goldsmiths. Typical sites are the Heuneburg on the upper Danube surrounded by nine very large grave tumuli, Mont Lassois in eastern France near Châtillon-sur-Seine with, at its foot, the very rich grave at Vix,[17] and the hill fort at Molpír in Slovakia. Tumuli graves had a chamber, rather large in some cases, lined with timber and with the body and grave goods set about the room.

In the central Hallstatt regions toward the end of the period (Ha D), very rich graves of high-status individuals under large tumuli are found near the remains of fortified hilltop settlements. There are some chariot burials, including Vix and Hochdorf.[19] A model of a chariot made from lead has been found in Frögg, Carinthia, and clay models of horses with riders are also found. Wooden "funerary carts", presumably used as hearses and then buried, are sometimes found in the grandest graves. Pottery and bronze vessels, weapons, elaborate jewellery made of bronze and gold, as well as a few stone stelae are found at such burials.[20] The daggers that largely replaced swords in chief's graves in the west were probably not serious weapons, but badges of rank, and used at the table.[5]

The material culture of Western Hallstatt culture was apparently sufficient to provide a stable social and economic equilibrium. The founding of Marseille and the penetration by Greek and Etruscan culture after ca 600 BC, resulted in long-range trade relationships up the Rhone valley which triggered social and cultural transformations in the Hallstatt settlements north of the Alps. Powerful local chiefdoms emerged which controlled the redistribution of luxury goods from the Mediterranean world that is characteristic of the La Tène culture.

Ritual wagon

Iron swords appear in the later periods, from the 8th century, with tools coming rather later.[21] Initially iron was rather exotic and expensive, and sometimes used as a prestige material for jewellery. The potter's wheel appears right at the end of the period.[22]

The apparently largely peaceful and prosperous life of Hallstatt D culture was disrupted, perhaps even collapsed, right at the end of the period. There has been much speculation as to the causes of this, which remain uncertain. Large settlements such as Heuneburg and the Burgstallkogel were destroyed or abandoned, rich tumulus burials ended, and old ones were looted. There was probably a significant movement of population westwards, and the succeeding La Tène culture developed new centres to the west and north, their growth perhaps overlapping with the final years of the Hallstatt culture.[6]

Art

Hochdorf Grave gold artefacts

At least the later periods of Hallstatt art from the western zone are generally agreed to form the early period of Celtic art.[24] Decoration is mostly geometric and linear, and best seen on fine metalwork finds from graves (see above). Styles differ, especially between the west and east, with more human figures and some narrative elements in the latter. Animals, with waterfowl a particular favourite, are often included as part of other objects, more often than humans, and in the west there is almost no narrative content such as scenes of combat depicted. These characteristics were continued into the succeeding La Tène style.[25]

Imported luxury art is sometimes found in rich elite graves in the later phases, and certainly had some influence on local styles. The most spectacular objects, such as the Strettweg Cult Wagon,[26] the Warrior of Hirschlanden and the bronze couch supported by "unicyclists" from the Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave are one of a kind in finds from the Hallstatt period, though they can be related to objects from other periods.[27]

More common objects include weapons, in Ha D often with hilts terminating in curving forks ("antenna hilts").[5] Jewellery in metal includes fibulae, often with a row of disks hanging down on chains, armlets and some torcs. This is mostly in bronze, but "princely" burials include items in gold.

The origin of the narrative scenes of the eastern zone, from Hallstatt C onwards, is generally traced to influence from the Situla art of northern Italy and the northern Adriatic, where these bronze buckets began to be decorated in bands with figures in provincial Etruscan centres influenced by Etruscan and Greek art. The fashion for decorated situlae spread north across neighbouring cultures including the eastern Hallstatt zone, beginning around 600 BC and surviving until about 400 BC; the Vače situla is a Slovenian example from near the final period. The style is also found on bronze belt plates, and some of the vocabulary of motifs spread to influence the emerging La Tène style.[28]

According to Ruth and Vincent Megaw, "Situla art depicts life as seen from a masculine viewpoint, in which women are servants or sex objects; most of the scenes which include humans are of the feasts in which the situlae themselves figure, of the hunt or of war".[29] Similar scenes are found on other vessel shapes, as well as bronze belt-plaques.[30]

Geography

Vace Situla, detail

Two culturally distinct areas, an eastern and a western zone are generally recognised.[35] There are distinctions in burial rites, the types of grave goods, and in artistic style. In the western zone, members of the elite were buried with sword (HaC) or dagger (HaD), in the eastern zone with an axe.[24] The western zone has chariot burials. In the eastern zone, warriors are frequently buried with helmet and a plate armour breastplate.[23] Artistic subjects with a narrative component are only found in the east, in both pottery and metalwork.[36] In the east the settlements and cemeteries can be larger than in the west.[24]

The approximate division line between the two subcultures runs from north to south through central Bohemia and Lower Austria at about 14 to 15 degrees eastern longitude, and then traces the eastern and southern rim of the Alps to Eastern and Southern Tyrol.

The western Hallstatt zone includes: northeastern France, northern Switzerland, Southern Germany, western Czech Republic, and western Austria. More peripheral areas were: Central and North Italy, northern and central Spain, northern and north-central Portugal. The eastern Hallstatt zone includes: eastern Austria, eastern Czech Republic, southwestern Slovakia, western Hungary, eastern Slovenia, northern Croatia, northern and central Serbia, and parts of southwestern Poland. Trade, cultural diffusion, and some population movements spread the Hallstatt cultural complex (western form) into Britain, and Ireland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallstatt_culture

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Artefacts

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Metalwork

Vehicles

Ceramics

Textiles, clothing

Other

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Astronomy

Glauberg and Magdalenenberg calendars.

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Settlements

Important Centres

Urban centres north of the Alps developed over time between the end of the seventh and the fifth century BC in an area stretching from Bohemia to southern Germany and Central France. Sites such as the Heuneburg, Závist, Mont Lassois and Bourges produce evidence of a process of differentiation and hierarchization in the pattern of settlement that was concurrently an expression of, and a catalyst for, increasing social inequality. Although contacts with the Mediterranean world would certainly have played a role in such processes, endogenous factors were primarily responsible for the development of these early Central European agglomerations... many of them are usually referred to as Fürstensitze (‘princely seats’)

 The ‘classic/standard’ model of the Late Hallstatt Fürstensitze—based primarily on the results of the excavations at the Heuneburg—was presented by Kimmig in 1969. He defined them as political and administrative centres comprising a fortified central area on a topographically elevated site, accompanied by finds of objects from the Mediterranean area, and sumptuous burials in the immediate surroundings (Kimmig 1969). Later research has on the one hand confirmed many of these assumptions, but on the other emphasized the diversity and heterogeneity of the sites which have been classified as Fürstensitze. ... These often heavily-enclosed sites bear testimony to processes of differentiation and hierarchization in the regional settlement pattern that were concurrently an expression of, and a catalyst for, increasing social inequality, marked by the establishment of aristocratic—in some cases even monarchical—forms of rule, and elites that cultivated close contacts with the Mediterranean world .

During the Hallstatt D and earlier La Tène A periods, and so from the late seventh to the late fifth century BC, numerous local and regional groups in a swathe of temperate Europe north of the Alps were integrated into larger collective entities. These were hierarchically-organized societies, manifested archaeologically by large, normally fortified settlements surrounded by an immediate hinterland of elaborate barrow burials which served as a last resting place for members of the socio-political elite and their relatives or immediate retinues, and which included internal wooden chambers and rich grave-goods.

The importance within some Fürstensitze of skilled artisanal activity on a significant scale, as well as of mercantile functions, is reflected not only by the presence of workshops for specialised craftspeople—or even entire sectors given over to them, as on the margins of Bourges—but by imported goods, which are not recovered exclusively from elite contexts. But there was plainly considerable variation amongst these sites: there were other places within the Fürstensitzseries that seem primarily to have been locations for assemblies, cult sites or places of refuge, rather than centres that might qualify as urban. Therefore, we can maintain that whilst they were all complex central places, only some of them can be classified as ‘cities’ from a comparative urban perspective.

 During the Hallstatt D and earlier La Tène A periods, and so from the late seventh to the late fifth century BC, numerous local and regional groups in a swathe of temperate Europe north of the Alps were integrated into larger collective entities. These were hierarchically-organized societies, manifested archaeologically by large, normally fortified settlements surrounded by an immediate hinterland of elaborate barrow burials which served as a last resting place for members of the socio-political elite and their relatives or immediate retinues, and which included internal wooden chambers and rich grave-goods.

'The Complexity and Fragility of Early Iron Age Urbanism in West-Central Temperate Europe', Manuel Fernandez-Gotz, 2017

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Heuneburg