From The Celtic World, (1995):
Archaeological evidence suggests that, by the early fifth century BC, centres of power and wealth in central Europe had shifted north and west to the Rhineland and the Marne. This may have occurred because, at a time when Etruria was becoming a major power, the trade-routes were perhaps reoriented to facilitate direct trading between the Celts and the Etruscans. This geographical shift is marked by the appearance of new elements in material culture, which archaeologists call La Tène, after the metal-work from the site of the same name on Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland. Precious items of war-gear and other implements, together with animals, were deliberately deposited in the water over a long period, presumably as a series of votive acts. The La Tène phase of the European Iron Age demonstrates the presence of a warrior-aristocracy, some of whom were still buried with vehicles, but now with a light two-wheeled cart or chariot replacing the heavy wagon of the later Hallstatt period. The La Tène tradition is above all characterised by a fine art, essentially an aristocratic art which was employed principally for the embellishment of metalwork. La Tene artists owed much to their Hallstatt forebears but they were also heavily influenced by themes and art forms from both the classical world and the Near East. Celtic art was dominated by abstract, geometric designs, but images from the natural world - foliage, animals and human faces - were often incorporated as integral components of these designs. The material culture of the La Tène phase represents the ‘floruit’ of Celtic civilisation. The archaeological record presents us with a picture of a heroic society in which war, feasting and display were important, a society which is recognisable as that alluded to by classical chroniclers of their ‘Celtic’ neighbours.
Celtic culture per se is generally considered to come to an end around the end of the first century BC, when most of temperate Europe was subjected to the domination of the Roman world. The new hybrid culture resulting from the interaction between Roman and indigenous Celtic ideas retained many elements of pre-Roman tradition, whilst at the same time adopting new influences from Graeco-Roman Europe. […]
Ancient literary sources, archaeological evidence and, to a lesser extent, language, all contrive to present us with a picture of a Celtic world which, in its heyday (the later first millennium BC), stretched from Ireland and Spain in the west and Scotland in the north to Czechoslovakia in the east and northern Italy in the south, and even beyond Europe to Asia Minor. But we need to examine the nature of that Celtic culture and how it expanded from its original central European heartlands. When we speak of Celtic expansion over Europe, how far do we perceive this in terms of vast folk movements? Classical writers refer to marauding bands of Celts sacking Rome in the early fourth century BC, Delphi in the early third century, and to the establishment of the Celtic Galatians in Asia Minor at the same time. But some Celtic expansion was surely the result of the spread of fashions, ideas and traditions at least as much as of actual ethnic Celts.
The preceding "Halstatt D" culture, of about 650-475, was also very widespread across Europe, and the transition over this area was gradual, and is mainly detected through La Tène style elite artefacts, which first appear in the western end of the old Hallstatt region.
The establishment of a Greek colony, soon very successful, at Massalia (modern Marseilles) on the Mediterranean coast of France led to great trade with the Hallstatt areas up the Rhone and Saone river systems. Most areas were probably controlled by tribal chiefs living in hilltop forts, while the bulk of the population lived in small villages or farmsteads in the countryside.[8]
By 500 the Etruscans expanded to border Celts in north Italy, and trade across the Alps began to overhaul trade with the Greeks, and the Rhone route declined. Booming areas included the middle Rhine, with large iron ore deposits, the Marne and Champagne regions, and also Bohemia, although here trade with the Mediterranean area was much less important. Trading connections and wealth no doubt played a part in the origin of the La Tène style, though how large a part remains much discussed; specific Mediterranean-derived motifs are evident, but the new style does not depend on them.[9]
By about 400 the evidence for Mediterranean trade become sparse; this may have been because the expanding Celtic populations began to migrate south
and west, coming into violent conflict with the established populations, including the Etruscans and Romans. The settled life in much of the La Tène homelands also seems to have become much more unstable and prone to wars. In about 387 the Celts under Brennus defeated the Romans and then sacked Rome, establishing themselves as the most prominent threats to the Roman homeland, a status they would retain through a series of Roman-Gallic wars until Julius Caesar's final conquest of Gaul in 58-50 BCE. The Romans prevented the Celts from reaching very far south of Rome, but on the other side of the Adriatic Sea groups passed through the Balkans to reach Greece, where Delphi was attacked in 279, and Asia, where Galatia was established as a Celtic area of Anatolia. By this time the La Tène style was spreading to the British Isles, though apparently without any significant movements in population.[10]
and west, coming into violent conflict with the established populations, including the Etruscans and Romans. The settled life in much of the La Tène homelands also seems to have become much more unstable and prone to wars. In about 387 the Celts under Brennus defeated the Romans and then sacked Rome, establishing themselves as the most prominent threats to the Roman homeland, a status they would retain through a series of Roman-Gallic wars until Julius Caesar's final conquest of Gaul in 58-50 BCE. The Romans prevented the Celts from reaching very far south of Rome, but on the other side of the Adriatic Sea groups passed through the Balkans to reach Greece, where Delphi was attacked in 279, and Asia, where Galatia was established as a Celtic area of Anatolia. By this time the La Tène style was spreading to the British Isles, though apparently without any significant movements in population.[10]
After about 275 the relentless Roman expansion into the area occupied by La Tène culture began; it would never be complete, but lasted until the 1st century CE in Britain, leaving only the approximate areas of the modern Celtic nations (excluding Brittany) unoccupied. The Romans never attempted to
invade Ireland and eventually decided that expansion into north Scotland was not worth the trouble, retreating from the line of the Antonine Wall to
Hadrian's Wall in 162 CE. [11]
invade Ireland and eventually decided that expansion into north Scotland was not worth the trouble, retreating from the line of the Antonine Wall to
Hadrian's Wall in 162 CE. [11]
Material Culture
La Tène metalwork in bronze, iron and gold, developing technologically out of the Hallstatt culture, is stylistically characterized by inscribed and inlaid intricate spirals and interlace, on fine bronze vessels, helmets and shields, horse trappings and elite jewelry, especially the neck rings called torcs and elaborate clasps called fibulae. It is characterized by elegant, stylized curvilinear animal and vegetal forms, allied with the Hallstatt traditions of geometric patterning.
The Early Style of La Tène art and culture mainly featured static, geometric decoration, while the transition to the Developed Style constituted a shift to movement-based forms, such as triskeles. Some subsets within the Developed Style contain more specific design trends, such as the recurrent serpentine scroll of the Waldalgesheim Style. [21]
Initially La Tène people lived in open settlements that were dominated by the chieftains’ hill forts. The development of towns—oppida—appears in mid-La Tène culture. La Tène dwellings were carpenter-built rather than of masonry. [...] Burial sites included weapons, chariots, carts, and both elite and household goods, evoking a strong continuity with an afterlife. [22]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Tène_culture
Urbanisation: Oppida
"The Mediterranean world has dominated notions of European civilization since the founding of the Roman Empire. What was swept away in Northern
Europe [by the Roman Conquest] was itself a dynamic indigenous culture extending across the transalpine landmass, usually known today as that of the Celts. The proto-urban Oppida - a Latin word used by Julius Caesar himself - remain one of the most striking manifestations of this pre-Roman northern European civilization. These sites developed in Europe at the end of the Ist millenium BC. Located to the North of the Alps, they extend between Southern Britain to the West and Hungary to the East. Archaeological research reveals a dense, organised occupation, geared towards a major activity of production."
The second and first centuries BC represented a period of radical change in settlement pattern and social, political and economic organisation in central and western Europe. By the time Caesar reached Gaul, the predecessors of Roman and modern towns were already in existence as administrative and trading centres - Vesontio (Besancon), Durocororum (Reims), Lutetia (paris), Avaricum (Bourges) and others. In the Celtic-speaking parts of Spain sites such as Numantia formed the major centres of resistance, while Camulodunum (Colchester) was considered the capital of Britain, sufficiently important for the Emperor Claudius himself to take part in its capture. Over a broad zone, Portugal, central Spain, southern Britain, France, southern and central Germany, the Alpine zone, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia major settlements, often labelled by ancient authors and modern archaeologists alike as ‘oppida’, had come into existence. […]
Some of the innovation of this period, for instance the advances in pottery production, can be traced back to the Mediterranean world, but some aspects, like the iron industry and coin use, were more advanced than in the Mediterranean, and indicate indigenous changes.
In his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age settlements he encountered in Gaul during the Gallic Wars in 58 to 52 BC as oppida. They were important economic sites, places where goods were produced, stored and traded, and sometimes Roman merchants had settled and the Roman legions could obtain supplies. They were also political centres, the seat of authorities who made decisions that affected large numbers of people, such as the appointment of Vercingetorix as head of the Gallic revolt in 52 BC.[1]
According to prehistorian John Collis oppida extend as far east as the Hungarian plain where other settlement types take over.[6] Central Spain has sites similar to oppida, but while they share features such as size and defensive ramparts the interior was arranged differently.[7] Oppida feature a wide variety of internal structures, from continuous rows of dwellings (Bibracte) to more widely spaced individual estates (Manching). Some oppida had internal layouts resembling the insulae of Roman cities (Variscourt).[1]
Roads
"Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient highway built before the Roman Conquest which suggests that Iron Age man may have beaten them to it.The discovery is the first of its kind and proves that ancient Britons built and used complex roads a century earlier than the invaders. It even raises the possibility that the Romans were inspired by Iron Age man, as their road was built on top of the original foundations, which date from 2,100 years ago. Tim Malim, the archaeologist leading the project, said his team had been brought in to investigate what was believed to be a Roman road. But on closer inspection, they realised that the construction was actually built upon the original foundations of another road, which was found to date from the Iron Age. The discovery is now likely to prompt archaeologists in other parts of Britain to re-examine some more typically Roman-looking roads to see whether they too were constructed by Britons.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...-invasion.html
Resources and Industry
“The resource procurement and industrial activities of the Celtic peoples must be understood in the context of social and economic changes taking place at the end of the Iron Age. We can distinguish three main period of development […]. Between 600 and 400 BC, centres of economic activity emerged in temperate Europe that formed foci for these activities. Between 400 and 200 BC, during a time for which we have historical and archaeological evidence of Celtic peoples moving to other regions of Europe, centres were few in number. Starting around 200 BC, the great fortified settlements known as oppida served as focal points for large-scale resource procurement and manufacturing.
The peoples of iron age Europe exploited a wide range of resources, including different kinds of stone, timber, clays and mineral ores, as well as salt and graphite, jet, lignite and sapropelite.
In the final centuries of the Iron Age, much of the gold used in coins and rings may have derived from gold imported from the Mediterranean world, partly in the form of payment to Celtic mercenaries who served in armies in east Mediterranean lands (Szabo 1991). […]
Most of the tools that survive from the Iron Age are made of iron. By the time of the oppida, in the
second and final centuries BC, some 200 distinct types of iron tools can be identified, serving a wide range of purposes (Jacobu 1974). These include metalworking, carpentry, agriculture, mining, fishing, hunting, textile production, leather working and cooking. Other implements include medical instruments, equipment for the hearth, locks and keys, and fittings for harnesses and wagons. […] Plainer (1968) has shown that already at the start of the Iron Age, around 800 BC, some smiths had mastered the techniques for producing fine, hard and sharp-cutting edges by carburising blades to make the iron-carbon alloy, steel.
The final two centuries before Christ represent the culmination in resource extraction and industrial activity in Celtic Europe. The quantities of many materials extracted from the environment, especially iron for tools and weapons and stone and wood for the construction of oppidum walls, was much larger than ever before. Many of the products of manufacturing activity indicate a level of specialisation that researchers believe results from a profound change in the organisation of manufacturing, from a largely domestic, kin-based system to one based instead on specialised occupational activity (Meduna 1980: 157; Audouue and Buchsenschutz 1989: 303, Gebhard 1989: 185).
The oppida were centres for resource exploitation and industrial production of goods. The evidence is most abundant at Manching, but similar results are emerging from other sites, especially among the intensively researched Bohemian and Moravian oppida. Serial or mass-production is first evident at the oppida with large quantities of objects such as knives, axes, hammers, nails, and clamps forged of iron (Jacobi 1974). Gebhard (1989) interprets the great quantities of glass bracelets manufactured as indicating mass-production aimed at export trade.
The fast-turning potter’s wheel came into general use late in the second century BC, and led to madd-production of ceramics at the oppida and to increased standardisation of vessel forms across celtic Europe (Arcelin 1981; Roualet and Charpy 1987). In the large quantity and striking uniformity of vessels at the major oppida, Pingel (1971: 82) sees evidence for centralised pottery production.
For Bibracte, Hrazany, Manching, and some other oppida, investigators have interpreted spacial evidence on the excavated surfaces as indicating special areas where production activities were concentrated (Capelle 1979). […] The accumulating evidence for industry at the oppida suggests full-time industrial specialists at some sites.
Fundamental to the growth of the oppida and of the industries that they housed was the great increase in agricultural productivity during this period. The proliferation of new iron tools made that change possible (Meduna 1980: 114). […] The rotary quern increased the efficiency of grinding grain several hundred per cent, according to modern experiments (Walduhasuer 1981).
Recent discovery of evidence for manufacturing, often on a substantial scale, at smaller, unenclosed settlements necessitates a rethinking of the organisation of industry at the end of the iron age. At a growing number of excavated small-scale settlements such as Aulnat (Collis 1980) and Leroux (Audouue and Buchsenshutz 1989: 306-7) in south-western France, and Berching-Pollanten in northern Bavaria (Fischer, Rieckhoof-Pauli and Spindler 1984), ironworking, bronze-casting, and coin-minting were carried out. Msec in Bohemia was a specialised iron-smelting site (Plainer and Princ 1984). At Strachotin in Moravia (Cizmar 1987), iron-working and textile production are apparent, and pottery appears to have been manufactured on a large scale, suggestive of specialised production for export. In Britain, the small settlement of Gossage All Saints (Wainwright 1979) yielded abundant evidence for the casting of bronze harness ornaments, almost certainly for use by persons who did not live in the community. It is apparent now that the oppida, while clearly focal points for intensive and specialised production for surrounding landscapes, did not maintain monopolies on such production.
The large-scale, specialised industrial activity at the major settlements of the Late Iron Age was targeted, at least in large part, at export trade (Bujna 1982: 421). Distributions of such products of Celtic workshops as painted pottery, graphite-clay ceramics, glass bracelets, bronze cauldrons and iron swords in lands beyond the Celtic territories, illustrates the important connection between industry and trade at the end of the Iron Age.
Wells, Peter S. ‘Resources and Industry’. In The Celtic World, Ed. Miranda Green. Routledge, 1995. p.213.
Urbanisation: Oppida
"The Mediterranean world has dominated notions of European civilization since the founding of the Roman Empire. What was swept away in NorthernEurope [by the Roman Conquest] was itself a dynamic indigenous culture extending across the transalpine landmass, usually known today as that of the Celts. The proto-urban Oppida - a Latin word used by Julius Caesar himself - remain one of the most striking manifestations of this pre-Roman northern European civilization. These sites developed in Europe at the end of the Ist millenium BC. Located to the North of the Alps, they extend between Southern Britain to the West and Hungary to the East. Archaeological research reveals a dense, organised occupation, geared towards a major activity of production."
Excerpt from The Celtic World:
The second and first centuries BC represented a period of radical change in settlement pattern and social, political and economic organisation in central and western Europe. By the time Caesar reached Gaul, the predecessors of Roman and modern towns were already in existence as administrative and trading centres - Vesontio (Besancon), Durocororum (Reims), Lutetia (paris), Avaricum (Bourges) and others. In the Celtic-speaking parts of Spain sites such as Numantia formed the major centres of resistance, while Camulodunum (Colchester) was considered the capital of Britain, sufficiently important for the Emperor Claudius himself to take part in its capture. Over a broad zone, Portugal, central Spain, southern Britain, France, southern and central Germany, the Alpine zone, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia major settlements, often labelled by ancient authors and modern archaeologists alike as ‘oppida’, had come into existence. […]
The third and second centuries BC saw enormous strides in production and exchange in central and western europe. There are two industries which document this development most clearly, but similar things were probably happening in other industries as well. In iron production we can demonstrate both a qualitative and a quantitative leap, and huge quantities of iron objects suddenly become common on all types of settlement. Something similar happens in the pottery industry, and this can be characterised first in the increased importance of wheel-turned pottery over hand-made, and second in the construction of elaborate kilns for mass-production. They are indicators of increased specialisation in a broad range of other industries - wood - and leather-working, glass, metallurgy, textiles, and at Manching Jacobi (1974) has identified the specialist tools that accompanied these changes. […]
Some of the innovation of this period, for instance the advances in pottery production, can be traced back to the Mediterranean world, but some aspects, like the iron industry and coin use, were more advanced than in the Mediterranean, and indicate indigenous changes.
In conclusion, urbanisation in the Celtic-speaking world seems mainly to be connected with an upsurge in production, partly due to contacts with the Mediterranean world, but partly indigenous. This increased production in turn stimulated increased trade contacts with the mediterranean, bringing in luxury goods such as wine, and the upsurge in trade itself became a factor in urbanisation. […] in Gaul, Britain and Spain it laid the foundations for subsequent urban development, and many major settlements were already well established by the time of the Roman conquest.
From Wikipedia:
In his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age settlements he encountered in Gaul during the Gallic Wars in 58 to 52 BC as oppida. They were important economic sites, places where goods were produced, stored and traded, and sometimes Roman merchants had settled and the Roman legions could obtain supplies. They were also political centres, the seat of authorities who made decisions that affected large numbers of people, such as the appointment of Vercingetorix as head of the Gallic revolt in 52 BC.[1]
Caesar named 28 oppida. By 2011, only 21 of these had been positively identified by historians and archaeologists. Most of the places that Caesar called oppida were city sized fortified settlements. Caesar also refers to 20 oppida of the Bituriges and 12 of the Helvetii, twice the number of fortified settlements of these groups known today. That implies that Caesar likely counted some unfortified settlements as oppida. A similar ambiguity is in evidence in writing by the Roman historian Livy, who also used the word for both fortified and unfortified settlements.[1]
In his work Geographia, Ptolemy listed the coordinates of many Celtic settlements. However, research has shown many of the localisations of Ptolemy to be erroneous, making the identification of any modern location with the names he listed highly uncertain and speculative. An exception to that is the oppidum of Brenodurum at Bern, which was confirmed by an archaeological discovery.[1]
According to prehistorian John Collis oppida extend as far east as the Hungarian plain where other settlement types take over.[6] Central Spain has sites similar to oppida, but while they share features such as size and defensive ramparts the interior was arranged differently.[7] Oppida feature a wide variety of internal structures, from continuous rows of dwellings (Bibracte) to more widely spaced individual estates (Manching). Some oppida had internal layouts resembling the insulae of Roman cities (Variscourt).[1]
The main features of the oppida are the walls and gates, the spacious layout, and usually a commanding view of the surrounding area. The major difference with earlier structures was their much larger size. Earlier hill forts were mostly just a few hectares in area, whilst oppida could encompass several dozen or even hundreds of hectares. They also played a role in displaying the power and wealth of the local inhabitants and as a line of demarcation between the town and the countryside.[1]:25 According to Jane McIntosh, the "impressive ramparts with elaborate gateways ... were probably as much for show and for controlling the movement of people and goods as for defense".[8]
Size and construction varied considerably. Typically oppida in Bohemia and Bavaria were much larger than those found in the north and west of France. Typically oppida in Britain are small, but there is a group of large oppida in the south east; though oppida are uncommon in northern Britain, Stanwick stands out as an unusual example as it covers 350 hectares (860 acres). Dry stone walls supported by a bank of earth, called Kelheim ramparts, were characteristic of oppida in central Europe. To the east, timbers were often used to support the earthen ramparts, called Pfostenschlitzmauer.[1] In western Europe, especially Gaul, the murus gallicus, a timber frame nailed together, was the dominant form of rampart construction. Oppida can be divided into two broad groups, those around the Mediterranean coast and those further inland. The latter group were larger, more varied, and spaced further apart.[10] Caesar pointed out that each tribe of Gaul would have several oppida but that they were not all of equal importance, implying a form of settlement hierarchy.
Oppida continued in use until the Romans began conquering Iron Age Europe. Even in the lands north of the River Danube that remained unconquered by the Romans, oppida were abandoned by the late 1st century AD.[8] In conquered lands, the Romans used the infrastructure of the oppida to administer the empire, and many became full Roman towns. This often involved a change of location from the hilltop into the plain.
“Traditionally, Gallic roads have been underestimated by archaeologists, but aerial photography is revealing a network of roads linking major oppida and providing communications with farmsteads. The mention of bridges by Caesar implies that many of these roads were more than simple tracks, a view strengthened by the use of Gallic names for a range of two-wheel and four-wheel carts and the Gauls’ contemporary reputation for skilful wheel making.”
"Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient highway built before the Roman Conquest which suggests that Iron Age man may have beaten them to it.The discovery is the first of its kind and proves that ancient Britons built and used complex roads a century earlier than the invaders. It even raises the possibility that the Romans were inspired by Iron Age man, as their road was built on top of the original foundations, which date from 2,100 years ago. Tim Malim, the archaeologist leading the project, said his team had been brought in to investigate what was believed to be a Roman road. But on closer inspection, they realised that the construction was actually built upon the original foundations of another road, which was found to date from the Iron Age. The discovery is now likely to prompt archaeologists in other parts of Britain to re-examine some more typically Roman-looking roads to see whether they too were constructed by Britons.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...-invasion.html
Resources and Industry
“The resource procurement and industrial activities of the Celtic peoples must be understood in the context of social and economic changes taking place at the end of the Iron Age. We can distinguish three main period of development […]. Between 600 and 400 BC, centres of economic activity emerged in temperate Europe that formed foci for these activities. Between 400 and 200 BC, during a time for which we have historical and archaeological evidence of Celtic peoples moving to other regions of Europe, centres were few in number. Starting around 200 BC, the great fortified settlements known as oppida served as focal points for large-scale resource procurement and manufacturing.The peoples of iron age Europe exploited a wide range of resources, including different kinds of stone, timber, clays and mineral ores, as well as salt and graphite, jet, lignite and sapropelite.
In the final centuries of the Iron Age, much of the gold used in coins and rings may have derived from gold imported from the Mediterranean world, partly in the form of payment to Celtic mercenaries who served in armies in east Mediterranean lands (Szabo 1991). […]
Most of the tools that survive from the Iron Age are made of iron. By the time of the oppida, in thesecond and final centuries BC, some 200 distinct types of iron tools can be identified, serving a wide range of purposes (Jacobu 1974). These include metalworking, carpentry, agriculture, mining, fishing, hunting, textile production, leather working and cooking. Other implements include medical instruments, equipment for the hearth, locks and keys, and fittings for harnesses and wagons. […] Plainer (1968) has shown that already at the start of the Iron Age, around 800 BC, some smiths had mastered the techniques for producing fine, hard and sharp-cutting edges by carburising blades to make the iron-carbon alloy, steel.
The final two centuries before Christ represent the culmination in resource extraction and industrial activity in Celtic Europe. The quantities of many materials extracted from the environment, especially iron for tools and weapons and stone and wood for the construction of oppidum walls, was much larger than ever before. Many of the products of manufacturing activity indicate a level of specialisation that researchers believe results from a profound change in the organisation of manufacturing, from a largely domestic, kin-based system to one based instead on specialised occupational activity (Meduna 1980: 157; Audouue and Buchsenschutz 1989: 303, Gebhard 1989: 185).
The oppida were centres for resource exploitation and industrial production of goods. The evidence is most abundant at Manching, but similar results are emerging from other sites, especially among the intensively researched Bohemian and Moravian oppida. Serial or mass-production is first evident at the oppida with large quantities of objects such as knives, axes, hammers, nails, and clamps forged of iron (Jacobi 1974). Gebhard (1989) interprets the great quantities of glass bracelets manufactured as indicating mass-production aimed at export trade.The fast-turning potter’s wheel came into general use late in the second century BC, and led to madd-production of ceramics at the oppida and to increased standardisation of vessel forms across celtic Europe (Arcelin 1981; Roualet and Charpy 1987). In the large quantity and striking uniformity of vessels at the major oppida, Pingel (1971: 82) sees evidence for centralised pottery production.
For Bibracte, Hrazany, Manching, and some other oppida, investigators have interpreted spacial evidence on the excavated surfaces as indicating special areas where production activities were concentrated (Capelle 1979). […] The accumulating evidence for industry at the oppida suggests full-time industrial specialists at some sites.
Fundamental to the growth of the oppida and of the industries that they housed was the great increase in agricultural productivity during this period. The proliferation of new iron tools made that change possible (Meduna 1980: 114). […] The rotary quern increased the efficiency of grinding grain several hundred per cent, according to modern experiments (Walduhasuer 1981).
Recent discovery of evidence for manufacturing, often on a substantial scale, at smaller, unenclosed settlements necessitates a rethinking of the organisation of industry at the end of the iron age. At a growing number of excavated small-scale settlements such as Aulnat (Collis 1980) and Leroux (Audouue and Buchsenshutz 1989: 306-7) in south-western France, and Berching-Pollanten in northern Bavaria (Fischer, Rieckhoof-Pauli and Spindler 1984), ironworking, bronze-casting, and coin-minting were carried out. Msec in Bohemia was a specialised iron-smelting site (Plainer and Princ 1984). At Strachotin in Moravia (Cizmar 1987), iron-working and textile production are apparent, and pottery appears to have been manufactured on a large scale, suggestive of specialised production for export. In Britain, the small settlement of Gossage All Saints (Wainwright 1979) yielded abundant evidence for the casting of bronze harness ornaments, almost certainly for use by persons who did not live in the community. It is apparent now that the oppida, while clearly focal points for intensive and specialised production for surrounding landscapes, did not maintain monopolies on such production. The large-scale, specialised industrial activity at the major settlements of the Late Iron Age was targeted, at least in large part, at export trade (Bujna 1982: 421). Distributions of such products of Celtic workshops as painted pottery, graphite-clay ceramics, glass bracelets, bronze cauldrons and iron swords in lands beyond the Celtic territories, illustrates the important connection between industry and trade at the end of the Iron Age.
Wells, Peter S. ‘Resources and Industry’. In The Celtic World, Ed. Miranda Green. Routledge, 1995. p.213.
Noric Steel
Trade and Exchange
Internal and External Trade and Exchange
For the period between 600 BC and the birth of Christ, similarities in material culture and human behaviour throughout the Celtic lands make it apparent that we are dealing with a single ‘culture’ on some level (Pauli 1980, Bachmann, Kossack and Kuhn 1962; Moscati et al. 1991), though regional variations in style of ornament and in feature of burial practice and settlement structure are always present.
Export trade from the Celtic lands in other directions is attested archaeologically […]. Glass ornaments, probably manufactured at the major oppida, are well represented north of the Celtic regions, for example in the Netherlands (Peddemors 1975) and in Thuringia (Lappe 1979), and Gebhard (1989; 185) suggests that the Celtic glass industry was producing specifically for export trade in the final phase of the Iron Age. Graphite-clay pottery has been found at sites in regions north of the Celtic lands as well (Kappel 1969) and was probably an export item. Fine painted pottery of late La Tene type occurs north of the Celtic production areas and apparently was traded into those regions. Iron weapons made by Celtic smiths were traded northward (Eggers 1951: 38; Frey 1986), as were bronze cauldrons, which are well represented on the North European Plain (Redlich 1980) and occur even further north (Bachmann 1990: 652, fig. 24). […]
Noric steel was a steel from Noricum, a Celtic kingdom located in modern Austria and Slovenia. The proverbial hardness of Noric steel is expressed by Ovid: "...durior [...] ferro quod noricus excoquit ignis..." which roughly translates to "...harder than iron tempered by Noric fire [was Anaxarete towards the advances of Iphis]..." [1] and it was widely used for the weapons of the Roman military after Noricum joined the empire in 16 BC.[2]
The iron ore was quarried at two mountains in modern Austria still called Erzberg "ore mountain" today, one at Hüttenberg, Carinthia[3] and the other at Eisenerz, Styria,[4] separated by c. 70 km. The latter is the site of the modern Erzberg mine.
Buchwald [5] identifies a sword of c. 300 BC found in Krenovica, Moravia as an early example of Noric steel due to a chemical composition consistent with Erzberg ore. A more recent sword, dating to c. 100 BC and found in Zemplin, eastern Slovakia, is of extraordinary length for the period (95 cm, 37 in) and carries a stamped Latin inscription, identified as a "fine sword of Noric steel" by Buchwald.[5] A center of manufacture was at Magdalensberg (in Austria).[5]
"Archaeological evidence demonstrates the regular transmission of goods between peoples inhabiting different regions of Europe at least from the Early Neolithic period onward (Jankuhn 1969), and by the Celtic Iron Age, systems of trade and circulation operated intensively and extensively throughout Europe.
The close connection between social systems and circulation of goods is especially clear in the rich burials of Celtic Europe - exotic trade goods from distant lands often distinguish these graves from the majority of burials.
We have good evidence during the Celtic Iron Age for trade in iron, copper and tin, graphite, salt, coral, stone, lignite, jet, sapropelite, amber, gold and silver. […] At the salt-mining sites of Hallstatt and the Durrnberg, iron deposits in the middle Rheinland, and graphite-clay sources in south-east Bavaria and Bohemia, communities developed to produce raw materials for trade.
The second main reason for trade in Celtic Europe was to acquire manufactured goods. This trade included both circulation between production centres and outlying rural communities, and long-distance trade that supplied exotic goods from other culture-areas.
For the period between 600 BC and the birth of Christ, similarities in material culture and human behaviour throughout the Celtic lands make it apparent that we are dealing with a single ‘culture’ on some level (Pauli 1980, Bachmann, Kossack and Kuhn 1962; Moscati et al. 1991), though regional variations in style of ornament and in feature of burial practice and settlement structure are always present.
Trade within the Celtic lands is apparent both in a variety of raw materials and in manufactured goods. Metals, salt, and substances used for ornaments (lignite and jet, for example) were traded throughout the period, and commerce intensified in the final two centuries of the Iron Age. Circulation of manufacture goods increased greatly at that time, and the evidence shows that pottery, glass ornaments and coins produced at the centres were traded to smaller communities in the countryside. […] The place of origin of many Celtic coins can be determined, and large quantities are recovered on settlements and in hoards throughout Europe. […]
In trade and exchange between Celtic lands and other culture-areas, amber from the Baltic region and coral from the Mediterranean are raw materials that were regularly imported. Both were used for ornamentation, carved into beads and as inlay for metal jewellery […]. Aside from these substances, trade with foreign lands was primarily in finished goods.
Most striking is the complex of objects from the Mediterranean world that arrived in substantial quantities from the sixth century BC to the time of the Roman conquest. […] Because of the spectacular nature of the Vix krater and other wine-associated imports, the wine trade has attracted considerable research attention, but other categories show that the interaction between the Mediterranean world and central Europe was diverse. For example the Grafenbuhl grave of around 500 BC (Zurn 1970) contained ornamental sphinxes of amber, bone and ivory, and remains of furniture from the Mediterranean world. Grave 6 in the Hohmichele tumulus at the Heuneburg included silk textiles (Hundt 1969), from the East. At the Oppida, surgical instruments, balances, mirrors, fibulae, finger-rings, cameos, glass vessels and bone writing implements from the Roman world are well represented (Svobodova 1985).
Export trade from the Celtic lands in other directions is attested archaeologically […]. Glass ornaments, probably manufactured at the major oppida, are well represented north of the Celtic regions, for example in the Netherlands (Peddemors 1975) and in Thuringia (Lappe 1979), and Gebhard (1989; 185) suggests that the Celtic glass industry was producing specifically for export trade in the final phase of the Iron Age. Graphite-clay pottery has been found at sites in regions north of the Celtic lands as well (Kappel 1969) and was probably an export item. Fine painted pottery of late La Tene type occurs north of the Celtic production areas and apparently was traded into those regions. Iron weapons made by Celtic smiths were traded northward (Eggers 1951: 38; Frey 1986), as were bronze cauldrons, which are well represented on the North European Plain (Redlich 1980) and occur even further north (Bachmann 1990: 652, fig. 24). […]
During the Iron Age, trade within temperate Europe is evident at most settlements in bronze objects, graphite used for surface colouration and mixed with clay in pottery, glass beads, and other materials. This evidence indicates that virtually all communities were involved in trade on a regular basis. The early iron age centres such as the Heuneburg in south-west Germany and Bragny in france, and the oppida of the late Iron Age probably manufactured goods for trade to the smaller communities in the countryside, perhaps in a system that brought foodstuffs and other farm and first products into the centres […] many of the smaller sites also yield evidence of manufacturing.
The importation of goods from outside Celtic Europe is apparent at many of the centres. The Heuneburg, Mont Lassois and other settlements have yielded sherds of Attic painted pottery, ceramic amphorae from the mediterranean world, coral, and amber from the Baltic region. These goods are not common on smaller sites, though the recent discovery of Attic red-figure pottery at a small settlement at Hochdorf in south-west Germany (Biel 1991) indicates that further research may change substantially our present view.
The oppida of the final two centuries BC were centres of commerce Timpe 1985; 267-8), as is apparent in the quantities of Roman imports recovered at the (Svobodova 1983, 1985) and in the growth of industries that operated for export trade. The manufacture of pottery, glass jewellery, sapropelite ornaments, bronze vessels and iron weapons seems to have been geared to some extent towards export trade in this late period. The major oppida are characterised as market-places (maker 1991) at which local and long-distance commerce was concentrated. Silver and bronze coinage may have developed to serve the needs of the large, commercially focused communities for a standard of exchange (kellner 1990: 15)
Barter Trade
We have archaeological evidence for the use of packhorse (Wyss 1989) and freight boats (Ellmers 1969) to transport materials, and ancient writers emphasise the importance of the river systems of Gaul for Celtic trade (Timpe 1985: 260). Payment of tolls in the course of such trade seems to have been a regular practice (Timpe 1985: 276), at last at the end of the Iron Age.
The gold, silver and bronze coinage of the final two centuries BC provides good information about barter trade. The regular sizes and weights of coins, and especially the balances for weighing precious metals - more than thirty have been found at Stradonice in Bohemia - indicate that coins served as standards of value in a barter system (steer 1987). The recovery of balances, as well as moulds for casting coin blanks, at small settlements, as well as at oppida, suggests that this early monetary system permeated the late Iron Age countryside.
Organisation of trade
In the period 600-450 BC, circulation of Mediterranean luxury goods was in the hands of elites at the centres. The products of the centres’ workshops circulated into the countryside, where they are found in the graves of the small communities (Wells 1980: 38-46; 1987). Trade in raw materials such as metals and salt was handled differently, because their extraction and circulation had to be managed at the locations where they occurred. We do not have the same evidence suggestive of elite control of the circulation of these materials as we have for the manufactured goods at the centres.
For trade at the oppida between 200 BC and the Roman conquest, there is no clear archaeological evidence for control by elites. The coin evidence points to a profound change in the organisation of trade (Haselgrove 1988), from a circulation of personal ornaments that was in the control of elites at small centres of the earlier period, to export of large quantities of mass-produced goods by specialist industrial workers who were increasingly controlling their own output and the resulting commerce, in the late period.
In addition to the concentrated commercial activities evident at the oppida, many small, unfortified settlements were situated at fords on rivers, such as Aulnat, Basel-Gasfabrik and Breisach-Hochstetten, and they too show evidence of considerable commercial activity (Fischer 1985: 288-9). The pattern supports the suggestion by Duval (1983) and others that, as commerce expanded during the second century BC, new groups of artisans and merchants emerged into positions of wealth and prominence, their economic activities and social positions based on growing commerce."
Seafaring
The Veneti were a seafaring Celtic people who lived in the Brittany peninsula (France), which in Roman times formed part of an area called Armorica. They gave their name to the modern city of Vannes. Other ancient Celtic peoples historically attested in Armorica include the Redones, Curiosolitae, Osismii, Esubii and Namnetes.
The Veneti inhabited southern Armorica, along the Morbihan bay. They built their strongholds on coastal eminences, which were islands when the tide was in, and peninsulas when the tide was out. Their most notable city, and probably their capital, was Darioritum (now known as Gwened in Breton or Vannes in French), mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography.
The Veneti built their ships of oak with large transoms fixed by iron nails of a thumb's thickness. They navigated and powered their ships through the use of leather sails. This made their ships strong, sturdy and structurally sound, capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of the Atlantic.
Judging by Caesar's Bello Gallico the Veneti evidently had close relations with Iron Age Britain; he describes how the Veneti sail to Britain.[1] They controlled the tin trade from mining in Cornwall and Devon.[2] Caesar mentioned that they summoned military assistance from that island during the war of 56 BCE.[3]
Seafaring
The Veneti inhabited southern Armorica, along the Morbihan bay. They built their strongholds on coastal eminences, which were islands when the tide was in, and peninsulas when the tide was out. Their most notable city, and probably their capital, was Darioritum (now known as Gwened in Breton or Vannes in French), mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography.The Veneti built their ships of oak with large transoms fixed by iron nails of a thumb's thickness. They navigated and powered their ships through the use of leather sails. This made their ships strong, sturdy and structurally sound, capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of the Atlantic.
Judging by Caesar's Bello Gallico the Veneti evidently had close relations with Iron Age Britain; he describes how the Veneti sail to Britain.[1] They controlled the tin trade from mining in Cornwall and Devon.[2] Caesar mentioned that they summoned military assistance from that island during the war of 56 BCE.[3]
Julius Caesar's description of the Veneti:
"The influence of this state is by far the most considerable of any of the countries on the whole sea coast, because the Veneti both have a very great number of ships, with which they have been accustomed to sail to Britain, and excel the rest in their knowledge and experience of nautical affairs; and as only a few ports lie scattered along that stormy and open sea, of which they are in possession, they hold as tributaries almost all those who are accustomed to traffic in that sea."
Julius Caesar's description of the Veneti ships:
"For their ships were built and equipped after this manner. The keels were somewhat flatter than those of our ships, whereby they could more easily
encounter the shallows and the ebbing of the tide: the prows were raised very high, and, in like manner the sterns were adapted to the force of the waves and storms. The ships were built wholly of oak, and designed to endure any force and violence whatever; the benches which were made of planks a foot in breadth, were fastened by iron spikes of the thickness of a man's thumb; the anchors were secured fast by iron chains instead of cables, and for sails they used skins and thin dressed leather. These [were used] either through their want of canvas and their ignorance of its application, or for this reason, which is more probable, that they thought that such storms of the ocean, and such violent gales of wind could not be resisted by sails, nor ships of such great burden be conveniently enough managed by them. The encounter of our fleet with these ships' was of such a nature that our fleet excelled in speed alone, and the plying of the oars; other things, considering the nature of the place [and] the violence of the storms, were more suitable and better adapted on their side; for neither could our ships injure theirs with their beaks (so great was their strength), nor on account of their height was a weapon easily cast up to them; and for the same reason they were less readily locked in by rocks. To this was added, that whenever a storm began to rage and they ran before the wind, they both could weather the storm more easily and heave to securely in the shallows, and when left by the tide feared nothing from rocks and shelves: the risk of all which things was much to be dreaded by our ships.
Caesar, after taking many of their towns, perceiving that so much labor was spent in vain and that the flight of the enemy could not be prevented on the capture of their towns, and that injury could not be done them, he determined to wait for his fleet. As soon as it came up and was first seen by the enemy, about 220 of their ships, fully equipped and appointed with every kind of [naval] implement, sailed forth from the harbor, and drew up opposite to ours; nor did it appear clear to Brutus, who commanded the fleet, or to the tribunes of the soldiers and the centurions, to whom the several ships were assigned, what to do, or what system of tactics to adopt; for they knew that damage could not be done by their beaks; and that, although turrets were built [on their decks], yet the height of the stems of the barbarian ships exceeded these; so that weapons could not be cast up from [our] lower position with sufficient effect, and those cast by the Gauls fell the more forcibly upon us."
"For their ships were built and equipped after this manner. The keels were somewhat flatter than those of our ships, whereby they could more easily
Caesar, after taking many of their towns, perceiving that so much labor was spent in vain and that the flight of the enemy could not be prevented on the capture of their towns, and that injury could not be done them, he determined to wait for his fleet. As soon as it came up and was first seen by the enemy, about 220 of their ships, fully equipped and appointed with every kind of [naval] implement, sailed forth from the harbor, and drew up opposite to ours; nor did it appear clear to Brutus, who commanded the fleet, or to the tribunes of the soldiers and the centurions, to whom the several ships were assigned, what to do, or what system of tactics to adopt; for they knew that damage could not be done by their beaks; and that, although turrets were built [on their decks], yet the height of the stems of the barbarian ships exceeded these; so that weapons could not be cast up from [our] lower position with sufficient effect, and those cast by the Gauls fell the more forcibly upon us."
Chariots
The Celts were famous for their chariots and modern English words like car, carriage and carry are ultimately derived from the native Brythonic language (Modern Welsh: Cerbyd). The word chariot itself is derived from the Norman French charriote and shares a Celtic root (Gaulish: karros).
Chariot burial was an Iron Age Celtic custom; while the wooden chariot has decayed, the horse harness, usually in bronze, survives well, and enough is left of the iron wheel covers and other iron parts to enable well-informed reconstructions. Only the richest were buried in this way, and there are often many other grave-goods. The 4th-century Waldalgesheim chariot burial is one of the best known. A tomb from the 4th century BC was discovered in La Gorge-Meillet, Marne in France;[6] another (450-300) at Somme-Bionne. In England, chariot burials are characteristic of, and almost confined to, the Iron Age Arras culture associated with the Parisii tribe. Finds of such burials are rare, and the persons interred were presumably chieftains or other wealthy notables. The Wetwang Slack chariot burial of c. 300 BC is unusual in that a woman was interred with the chariot.[8] Some 21 British sites are known, spanning approximately four centuries, virtually all in the East Riding of Yorkshire.[9] The Ferrybridge and Newbridge (near Edinburgh) chariots are unusual in Britain as they are the only ones to be buried intact.[10] The burial custom seems to have disappeared after the Roman occupation of Britain.
Celtic coinage was minted by the Celts from the late 4th century BC to the late 1st century BC. Celtic
Northern Gaulish coins were especially influenced by the coinage of Philip II of Macedon and his famous son Alexander the Great.[2] Celtic coins often retained Greek subjects, such as the head of Apollo on the obverse and two-horse chariot on the reverse of the gold stater of Philip II, but developed their own style from that basis, allowing for the development of a Graeco-Celtic synthesis.[2] After this first period in which Celtic coins rather faithfully reproduced Greek types, designs started to become more symbolic, as exemplified by the coinage of the Parisii in the Belgic region of northern France.[2] The Armorican Celtic style in northwestern Gaul also developed from Celtic designs from the Rhine valley, themselves derived from earlier Greek prototypes such as the wine scroll and split palmette.[2]
Over 45,000 of the ancient British and Gaulish coins discovered in Britain have been recorded at the Oxford Celtic Coin Index.[7][8] The Trinovantian tribal oppidum of Camulodunon (modern Colchester) was minting large numbers of coins in the first centuries BC and AD, which have been found across Southern Britain.[9] Common motifs on the Camulodunon coins included horses and wheat/barley sheafs,[10] with the names of the rulers written mostly in Latin script, and more rarely in Greek.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_coinage
"The excavated oppida yield evidence of writing in the final two centuries before Christ, both in the form of writing implements - ‘stili’ and bronze frames from wooden writing tablets (Jacobi 1974b), and in inscriptions in Greek characters scratched into pottery, as at Manching [Germany] (Kramer 1982) and in central and southern Gaul (Raubenheimer 1987). This writing was probably introduced in the context of trade between the oppidum communities and the Mediterranean world and provides another indication of the increasingly specialised role of the Celtic merchants in the expanding commerce of the late iron age centres."
Gaulish is found in some 800, often fragmentary, inscriptions including calendars, pottery accounts, funeral monuments, short dedications to gods, coin inscriptions, statements of ownership, and other texts, possibly curse tablets. Gaulish texts were first written in the Greek alphabet in southern France and in a variety of the Old Italic script in northern Italy. After the Roman conquest of those regions, writing shifted to the use of the Latin alphabet.[6]
Lepontic language, attested from a small area on the southern slopes of the Alps, around the present-day Swiss town of Lugano, is the oldest Celtic language known to have been written, with inscriptions in a variant of the Old Italic script appearing around c. 600 BC. It has been described either as an "early dialect of an outlying form of Gaulish", or else as a separate Continental Celtic language.[9]
Attestations of Gaulish proper in present-day France are known as "Transalpine Gaulish". Its written record begins in the 3rd century BC with inscriptions in the Greek alphabet, found mainly in the Rhône area of southern France (where Greek cultural influence was present via the colony of Massilia, founded c.600 BC).
At least 13 references to Gaulish speech and Gaulish writing can be found in Greek and Latin writers of antiquity. The word "Gaulish" (gallicum) as a language term is first explicitly used in the Appendix Vergiliana in a poem referring to Gaulish letters of the alphabet.[13] Julius Caesar reported in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico of 58 BC that the Celts/Gauls and their language are separated from the neighboring Aquitanians and Belgae by the rivers Garonne and Seine/Marne, respectively.[14] Caesar relates that census accounts written in the Greek alphabet were found among the Helvetii [15] He also notes that as of 53 BC the Gaulish druids used the Greek alphabet for private and public transactions, with the important exception of druidic doctrines, which could only be memorised and were not allowed to be written down.[16] According to the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, nearly three quarters of Gaulish inscriptions (disregarding coins) are in the Greek alphabet.
According to the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout present-day France, with the notable exception of Aquitaine, and in northern Italy.[40]Inscriptions include short dedications, funerary monuments, proprietary statements, and expressions of human sentiments, but the Gauls also left some longer documents of a legal or magical-religious nature,[3] the three longest being the Larzac tablet, the Chamalières tablet and the Lezoux dish.
A Celtic script in the eastern La Tène culture?, Jurgen Zeidler 2003
"From the circum-Alpine periphery, there is ample evidence for writing by Celtic people. In northern Italy and southern Switzerland we have ca. 150 testimonies of the Lepontic language, written in the local Lugano alphabet, a variant of the north-Etruscan script, covering the period from the 6th to the 1st century b.c., as well as a handful of Gaulish texts, also written in the Lugano script. From Switzerland there is also the zinc tablet from Berne, Thormebodewald, written in Greek letters with an admixture of Latin letter forms; the sword with the name Korisios in Greek letters on it, found in the river Zihl at Port near Biel; a glass bead with the appearance of Etruscoid letters on it from Münsingen-Rain... From Germany, two tile fragments are known from the oppidum of Manching, one bearing the name Boios in Greek or Roman letters, the other one containing a sequence of four letters of the Greek alphabet. More recently, a shard with the Latin letters TAR[ was discovered. From Slovenia stem two testimonies of possibly Celtic provenance, the inscription reading artebudz brogdui from Ptuj (Eichner et al. 1994), and perhaps some of the names on the famous helmet A from Ženjak-Negau... In addition there is indirect evidence for writing in the form of styluses and writing tablets, excavated in the oppida of Berne (Switzerland), Manching (Bavaria), Závist, Staré Hradisko and the Hradišt near Stradonice (Czech Republic)."
Vernacular writing traditions in the East-Alpine region in the Iron Age?, David Sifter 2009.
Druids
A druid was a member of the high-ranking professional class in ancient Celtic cultures. While perhaps best remembered as religious leaders, they were also legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. While the druids are reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form, thus they left no written accounts of themselves. They are however attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks.
The earliest known references to the druids date to the fourth century BCE and the oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). They were also described by later Greco-Roman writers such as Cicero,[2] Tacitus[3] and Pliny the Elder.[4] Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century.
“It is believed that their rule of life was discovered in Britain and transferred thence to Gaul; and to‑day those who would study the subject more accurately journey, as a rule, to Britain to learn it.”
A druid was a member of the high-ranking professional class in ancient Celtic cultures. While perhaps best remembered as religious leaders, they were also legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. While the druids are reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form, thus they left no written accounts of themselves. They are however attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks.
The earliest known references to the druids date to the fourth century BCE and the oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). They were also described by later Greco-Roman writers such as Cicero,[2] Tacitus[3] and Pliny the Elder.[4] Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century.
Julius Caesar's description of the druids:
“The Druids usually hold aloof from war, and do not pay war‑taxes with the rest; they are excused from military service and exempt from all liabilities. Tempted by these great rewards, many young men assemble of their own motion to receive their training; many are sent by parents and relatives. Report says that in the schools of the Druids they learn by heart a great number of verses, and therefore some persons remain twenty years under training. And they do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in almost all other matters, and in their public and private accounts, they make use of Greek letters. I believe that they have adopted the practice for two reasons — that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the cultivation of the memory; and, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of the memory. The cardinal doctrine which they seek to teach is that souls do not die, but after death pass from one to another; and this belief, as the fear of death is thereby cast aside, they hold to be the greatest incentive to valour. Besides this, they have many discussions as touching the stars and their movement, the size of the universe and of the earth, the order of nature, the strength and the powers of the immortal gods, and hand down their lore to the young men.”
“It is believed that their rule of life was discovered in Britain and transferred thence to Gaul; and to‑day those who would study the subject more accurately journey, as a rule, to Britain to learn it.”
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/6B*.html
Read more about the Druids
Mathematics and Astronomy
The Bibracte Basin
“Some phrases of the god’s language can be deciphered in the pink-granite basin of Bibracte (first century BC). […] The basin is the geometrical result of
two circles, overlapping at one-fifth of their diameters. Lines drawn from the centre of the oval to the centre of one of the circles and to a point of intersection form a Pythagorean triangle - a right-angled triangle with lengths that are a Pythagorean triad: 3, 4 and 5. [..]
The Pythagorean triangle has two angles of 53.13º. This was, to within four-fifths of a degree, the angle of the solstice sun at Bibracte. Accuracy of this order in the measurement of angles is often thought to have been unattainable without theodolites, but here, in one of the clearest utterances of the gods - two intersecting circles and a Pythagorean triangle - is proof that solar pathways could be measured quite simply. The fact that this solstice angle happens to be the angle produced by the sacred Pythagorean triad of 3, 4 and 5 must have struck the Druid mathematicians of Bibracte as a particularly auspicious coincidence.”
The Ancient Paths (Graham Robb, 2013)
The Coligny Calendar
Read more about the Druids
Mathematics and Astronomy
The Bibracte Basin
“Some phrases of the god’s language can be deciphered in the pink-granite basin of Bibracte (first century BC). […] The basin is the geometrical result of
The Pythagorean triangle has two angles of 53.13º. This was, to within four-fifths of a degree, the angle of the solstice sun at Bibracte. Accuracy of this order in the measurement of angles is often thought to have been unattainable without theodolites, but here, in one of the clearest utterances of the gods - two intersecting circles and a Pythagorean triangle - is proof that solar pathways could be measured quite simply. The fact that this solstice angle happens to be the angle produced by the sacred Pythagorean triad of 3, 4 and 5 must have struck the Druid mathematicians of Bibracte as a particularly auspicious coincidence.”
The Ancient Paths (Graham Robb, 2013)
The Coligny Calendar
The Gaulish Coligny calendar (c.50 AD) is made up of bronze fragments, in a single huge plate. It is inscribed in Gaulish with Latin characters and uses
The astronomical format of the calendar year that the Coligny calendar represents may well be far older, as calendars are usually even more conservative than rites and cults. The date of its inception is unknown, but correspondences of Insular Celtic and Continental Celtic calendars suggest that some early form may date to Proto-Celtic times, roughly 800 BC. The Coligny calendar achieves a complex synchronisation of the solar and lunar months. Whether it does this for philosophical or practical reasons, it points to considerable degree of sophistication.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_calendar
Read more about Mathematics and Astronomy
Politics
Excerpt from The Ancient Celts (1997):
"Some reflection of the change in style of power and prestige [in the later La Tene period] is reflected in Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War, which depict Gaulish society in a state of evolution. the situation among the Helvetii is informative. Orgetorix, we are told, was the richest and most distinguished man in the tribe, but he ‘aspired to kingship’ and. according to Caesar, attempted to persuade Casticus, a noble of the Sequani, and Dumnorix of the Aedui to do the same. ‘The three exchanged an oath of loyalty, hoping that when each had seized royal power they would be able to control the whole of Gaul’. However, the conspiracy was discovered and Orgetorix was arrested to stand trial. If he were found guilty, the punishment would be death by burning. To evade the procedure Orgetorix called together his kin and clients (some 10,000 according to Caesar), but the magistrates amassed a force to oppose him, and in the chaos which followed he died, possibly by suicide. The incident is informative in that it shows that among certain tribes government by elected magistrates had replaced kingship, but such was the social instability that to aspire to kingship was regarded as a very serious offence. The point is again made when Caesar mentions in passing that Celtillus, an Avernian and the father of Vercingetorix, had once been the most powerful man in the whole of Gaul and had been killed by his fellow tribesmen because he wished to become king.
The leadership of these more socially evolved tribes was in the hands of an annually elected magistrate, called the Vergobret by the Aedui, who had the power of life and death over his people. During his term of office the magistrate was forbidden to leave his country, and a further rule laid down that two members of the same family could not be appointed magistrates while both were alive or indeed might not be members of the council altogether. These strict controls were evidently designed to prevent an elected representative from leading a raiding force into another territory and to make sure that power did not concentrate in the hands of any one family. Regulations of this kind hint that the change from the old system to the new had only just got underway and that the elected magistracy was still a delicate growth. […] Elsewhere in Gaul kings were still much in evidence, though the system allowed for war leaders to be appointed to command the troops of more than one tribe when the need arose. Vercingetorix, who led the opposition to Caesar in 52 BC, is the prime example. [...]
[At the town of Bibracte, capital of the Aedui] envoys from other tribes were received by the chief magistrate and most of the tribal councils met during Caesar’s Gallic campaigns, and here in 52 BC, Vercingetorix was confirmed as supreme war leader by Gauls who had gathered from all over the country."
The Ancient Celts (Barry Cunliffe, 1997, p.224-232)
The Ancient Celts (Barry Cunliffe, 1997, p.224-232)
"The political system of the Aedui was essentially reformed according to indications in the Commentaries on the Gallic War. At the head of the Aedui state sat a senate comprising one member of each Aedui aristrocratic family. What is today called executive power was held by the vergobret, the supreme magistrate, who exercised his functions over the course of a year. He was forbidden from leaving the borders of the territory during this period, which prevented him from commanding the army outside the borders.[21] This measure, along with that which authorized only one voice per aristocratic family in the senate, aimed to prevent any individual or their family from monopolizing the reins of power. The vergobret was publicly elected by a council directed by the druids. Among the Aedui, it seems like the vergobret also exercised a judiciary role, since Caesar reports that he had "the right to life and death over his fellow citizens". Finally, it is thought that the vergobret was responsible for the administration of the territory.[21] Caesar adds that the druids were charged with this: "They believe that religion does not allow them to put the material of their education in writing, while for the rest in general, for public and private administrative acts, they used the Greek alphabet."[22] No excavation has permitted the rediscovery of such acts, the backings of which, being wood covered with wax, are perishable.
Furthermore, it is known that the druids held high functions since Diviciacus came to Rome to plead the case of the Aedui during the Germanic invasion led by Ariovistus on the account of the Sequani.;[23] he also directed the Aedui cavalry during the Gallic War after the death of his brother Dumnorix. Therefore, it is thought that some druids held high military positions."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibracte#Politics
Vergobret
"A vergobret was a person in the society of Ancient Gaul who held the highest office in many Gallic cities, especially among the Aedui. Julius Caesar discusses the role of the vergobret several times in his Commentaries on the Gallic War, referring to the office with the terms princeps civitatis, principatus, and magistratus.[1]
Elected every year under the aegis of the druids,[2] the vergobret had the right of life and death, and that of commanding the army in defensive action. He was however forbidden from leaving the borders of the territory of his people: "The laws of the Aedui forbid those who held the highest office from crossing the borders".[2] He could not therefore command the army outside of the borders. This made it necessary to name a general and prevented the vergobret from seizing power beyond this magistrature.[3]
The vergobret was chosen from among the most powerful people. Coins have been found in the effigies of Aedui and Remi vergobrets (for instance, staters at the effigy of Dumnorix). One of the rare archaeological traces of the vergobret came from the 1978 excavations of Dr. Allain in the zone of the temples to Argentomagus (Saint-Marcel, Indre), where an olla of terra nigra, engraved after being fired, bears the inscription, "vercobretos readdas". The meaning of the inscription is along the lines of "the vergobret has sacrificed/consecrated/given" (cf. P-Y Lambert 2003 and X. Delamarre 2003).
Several names of vergobrets are currently known: Liscus, Valetiacos, Convictolitavis of the Aedui, and Celtillos of the Arverni. For the Lemovices, two names are probable: Sedullos, killed at Alesia, was called dux et princeps lemovicum,[4] "military and civil leader", which probably corresponds to the title of vergobret. Furthermore, an inscription in rock in the Galloroman city of Augustoritum has been found, which is a sign of a yet incomplete Romanization: it cites a certain "Postumus, vergobret, son of Dumnorix" (the latter having no relation to the Aedui of the same name).[5]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergobret
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