imports into temperate Europe became scarce. Mont Las-
sois and the Heuneburg had already been abandoned soon
aft er 500 b.c.e. Bourges and Asperg may have survived until
as late as 400 b.c.e., but the trading systems had collapsed,
one factor being an economic downturn in southern France,
perhaps owing in part to the political confl icts at that time in
the Mediterranean among the Etruscans, Carthaginians, and
Greeks as well as the unrest in northern Italy caused by the
Gallic colonization.
In the third century b.c.e. the economic situation in tem-
perate Europe revived. Although renewed contact with Italy
(Etruria and Rome) was one element in the revival, it played
only a partial role, as imported wares such as fi ne pottery re-
mained rare until the second century b.c.e., when there was
an enormous upsurge in imported goods, especially ampho-
rae manufactured at sites on the west coast of Italy such as
Pompeii, Cosa, and Albinia. Th ese turn up by the thousand in
central France; their main contents were wine, but they were
also used for other goods such as olive oil and garum (fer-
mented fi sh paste). From the third century coinage was also
adopted, mainly based on Greek prototypes. Initially only
gold was used, but by the second century lower-value coins of
silver and bronze appeared, allowing lower levels of transac-
tions and perhaps also the appearance of market exchange
alongside the traditional gift exchange and barter.
Th is surge in economic activity led to the establishment
of settlements that in some cases were the direct predecessors
of the oppida, in that they were abandoned when the popula-
tion moved to nearby hilltop sites, as in the cases of Levroux,
Basel, and Breisach. Th ese early sites were much bigger than
normal farming settlements or hamlets, usually at least 25
acres in size, and they stand out not merely for their exotic
imported goods but also for the presence of a range of in-
dustries working materials such as iron, bronze, glass, shale,
and bone to produce weapons, tools, and ornaments. A few of
these sites, like those of the fi ft h century, lie on major trade
routes (Basel and Breisach on the Middle Rhine, Manching
on the Danube), but most seem rather to have been adminis-
trative or market centers (Levroux and the newly discovered
site of Bobigny in the northern suburbs of Paris).
In central Europe the sites seem more industrial in na-
ture, as at Mšecke Žehrovice in Bohemia, which specialized
in making shale bracelets that were widely traded, as well as
iron from local ore. Clearly some inhabitants of these sites
were artisans and possibly traders, and at Manching small
wooden houses showing evidence of various industries clus-
ter along the main east-west road paralleling the Danube. But
Levroux and Manching also had fenced enclosures like those
found on the later oppida, and they seem to have been farms
that also engaged in industrial production; they are usually
interpreted as the residences of a rich farming elite who were
becoming increasingly important in these societies. None of
these sites have rich burials like those of the sixth century.
Th e cemetery at Bobigny, while wealthy for its period (male
burials with weapons, a couple of imported Italian pots),
does not have the rich gold objects or high-status imports
found in earlier burials, and the cemetery as Basel seems
positively poor.
One site stands out as exceptional: Aulnat, just east of
Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne of central France. Like
the other sites, it is not on a major route; instead it sits on
very rich agricultural land. It is a concentration of areas of
dense occupation covering an area measuring at least one and
a quarter miles by a third of a mile by the late second century
b.c.e. Despite its large size, it refl ects the general pattern of
the other settlements, with a range of industries (minting of
gold and silver coins, working of bronze and iron, manufac-
ture of glass and bone objects, and probably production of
textiles). In its early phases, in the late third century b.c.e.,
imported items were rare—some coral as inlay for brooches
and a few fi ne vessels and cooking utensils. Th is was followed
by the upsurge in the second century b.c.e. of importation of
wine amphorae and fi ne pottery.
Th ere is also a structure identifi ed as a shrine, with as-
sociated off erings (notably the burial of a horse with its
gear). Th ere are many burials and small cemeteries scattered
around the settlement, though again the very richest contain
only items such as swords, and none are very rich by Iron
Age standards. But for this area we have documentary evi-
dence from Greek authors such as the ethnographer Poseido-
nius. He relates how the Arverni (aft er whom the Auvergne
is named) were the most powerful state in Gaul in the sec-
ond century b.c.e., controlling an area “from the Rhine to
the Atlantic” and extending into southern France. Th eir king
Luernios was described as the “richest man in all Gaul” and
his son Bituitos, aft er the defeat by the Romans of his army
in southern France in 123 b.c.e., was paraded in Rome in his
chariot “of gold and silver.” Aulnat seems to have been the
center of this powerful state.THE FOUNDATION OF THE OPPIDA
Several of the open sites were direct predecessors of the op-
pida, as they were abandoned at precisely the time when new
defended sites were established on nearby hills: Basel, Brei-
sach, Levroux, and Aulnat. Only at Manching did the open
site itself go on to become a defended site. Th ere the open set-
tlement had continued expanding until, by the time a murus
gallicus rampart was placed around the site around 120 b.c.e.,
it was nearly a mile in length, enclosing some 1,000 acres. Al-
most the whole area, which included a port site on the Dan-
ube, was densely occupied.
For most of the oppida, however, we do not know where
the population came from. Th ere will probably be more open
settlements discovered, especially underlying modern towns.
But in some oppida we are probably seeing the nucleation
of people from many smaller settlements of a nonurban na-
ture—in short, the deliberate foundation of a city where none
had existed before. Th is, of course, implies a central organi-
zation capable of making the decision to found a new site,
with the vision and knowledge of what was needed and the220 cities: Europe