Trade and Exchange -Gift Exchange
Fischer (1973) has outlined arguments for interpreting unusual and particularly
valuable (in labour investment and transportation) objects in Celtic Europe in terms
of gifts given between powerful members of societies. Drawing on classical literary
sources and anthropological studies of gift exchange, Fischer argues that such special
objects as the Grachwil hydria and the Vix krater can be understood as political gifts,
presented to potentates in Celtic Europe for the purpose of establishing congenial
relations for political or economic reasons.
The special objects that lend themselves to this interpretation are more common
in the Early Iron Age than in the Late. In the later context, nearly all of the imports
are objects that were produced in large quantities in Roman workshops, even though
they were apparently highly regarded in Celtic Europe and are found associated with
high-status individuals.
Booty
Reinecke (1958) addressed the problem of distinguishing archaeologically between
objects of trade and those seized as booty. The distinction is not always easy. As
Grierson (1959) argues for the early medieval world, we need to think in terms of a
range of different mechanisms of goods transmission. For the fourth and third
centuries Be, during the time of the Celtic raids and migrations to other parts of
Europe, Bujna (1982: 421-2) envisions a major role being played by the seizing
of booty. Later, to account for the abundance of bronze cauldrons on the Saale and
lower Elbe rivers, Redlich (1980) suggests that some were obtained through
Germanic raids into Celtic territory, though the large number of such cauldrons
found in similar contexts suggests that barter trade may have been the principal
mechanism of their transmission.
Mercenary Activity
The service of Celts as mercenaries in armies of east Mediterranean lands is well
documented in ancient historical sources (Szabo 1991). The introduction of coinage
into Celtic Europe has been connected with this mercenary activity. The earliest
Celtic coins were gold, fashioned after the gold staters of Philip of Macedon (359-336
Be) and his son Alexander the Great (336-323 Be), and it is likely that these proto-
types were brought into Celtic central Europe by mercenaries returning home
(Mannsperger 198 I: 234). Much of the gold jewellery from the fourth century Be
onwards in Celtic Europe, as well as the local gold coinage from the early third
century, may have been made of remelted gold brought by returning mercenaries.Exogamy as Exchange
During the final 150 years before the birth of Christ, numerous personal ornaments,
including fibulae and belt decorations, were brought from non-Celtic lands into the
Celtic regions. The objects are characteristic of women's costume, and the finds,
which occur in sets, may reflect the movement of women from outside Celtic