- Chapter Twenty-One -
site very close by, excavated privately but without proper record, probably the
burial-ground of a leading Goldberg family; no 'princely tomb' is known that we can
associate with the Goldberg settlement.
Bersu considered that at Goldberg he was dealing with the H errensitz of a
sub chief (no higher); but it had in the German press of 1935 been dubbed
Fuhrenpalast, a status dangerous for him to refute at that time. We have here evidence
of a person whose cloak was held with a single snake brooch (no matching pair); he
might have carried a dagger such as in GII6 at Hallstatt (a male grave which had a
snake-bow brooch, Hodson 1990: 107, 118, 83, fig. 14, showing its Sm2/Sm3 mid-
range status, Figure 21.4), or as in the male burial at Wolfegg in Bavaria, with its
snake brooch and belt-plate (Hundt in Rieth 1969: 18-23; Sievers 1982: pI. 44, 45).
It is thus through such artwork that we are able to place the social level of the
Goldberg hierarchy -who evidently had command of the local timber resources.
In the IVA-IVB change from isolated strong 'stockade' to hall-with-enclosures in
the 'citadel' area, we may perhaps see a significant change in social outlook, from per-
sonal defence to more organized administration of the community, which Radford
(pers. comm.) would suggest as the spread of the 'acropolis' concept into 'barbarian'
Europe.
Current work in Bohemia is also revealing sites of chiefs' dwellings of the later
fifth century, the beginning of the age of chariot burials. At Drougkovice in north-
west Bohemia is a stoutly timber-palisaded enclosure 90 m square, with a small
oblong enclosure off one corner, at one end of which was an unpretentious half-sunk
house 7 x 6.5 m, which did, however, provide a very small bronze model dog with
head turned back biting at a ram's head (Smorz, in Moscati et at. 1991: 185). This
model dog gives a clue to the standing of people using this place, for the stylistic
comparanda are many of them from rich chariot burials Gacobsthal 1944: nos.
289-318). Low soil phosphate suggests, however, that the site was not used very
intensively, perhaps intermittently, as might befit this rather unlordly house, the chief
moving round with his retainers between several such houses. The courtyards might
have housed the retainers for short stays in tents, for such were widely used even for
royal retinues on the move in medieval times (e.g. Edward I in Scotland. Gope et al.
19P: II8) and the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France in I po (Harvey 1947: pI. 159).
In Britain, by contrast with Celtic Europe, we have almost no cemeteries for the
sixth-second centuries Be (except for Yorkshire and the south-west: see below)
and modes of body disposal are a problem (see Chapter 29), but instead a range of
informative habitation sites (Cunliffe 1974: chs I I and 12). Most people living in such
a rural population may have had little time for real art, but their visual taste can be
detected, mainly in pottery, bone, wood, leather and textiles (of which latter a little
high-class material is preserved, e.g. Crowfoot, in Stead 1991a; and refs in Stead
1991a: 232). At the top of the scale we are just beginning to recognize the kinds of
dwellings lived in by the chieftain class in Britain and Ireland.
Many sites are Einzelhofe (single dwellings), but many clusters ('villages') are
also known. Almost all dwellings were round (or oval), though there is some evidence
for oblong buildings in hill-forts (e.g. Crickley Hill, Glos. (Dixon 1976: 172-4, figs 2,
8).
Some socially informative artwork does survive, some even in meaningful