- Introduction -
(those named as such in documentary sources) may have had their origins within the
cultures of the later Bronze Age. In terms of their archaeological presence, it does
not make sense to think of the Celts as suddenly appearing on the European stage in
the mid-first millennium Be. It is more likely that groups of people living in Europe
became 'Celtic' by accretion, through process of time.
The material culture of central and northern Europe in the later Bronze Age of
the mid-late second millennium Be is known to archaeologists as the 'Urnfield'
tradition, a term derived from a distinctive burial rite in which some members of
the population were cremated, their burnt bones being interred within pots, in flat
cemeteries. In addition, this Urnfield tradition is characterized by the new ability of
metalsmiths to fashion bronze into thin sheets which were formed into vessels,
body-armour and shields. The new technology may have been stimulated by the
collapse of the great hegemonies of southern Europe, namely the Mycenaean and
Hittite Empires, the demise of which perhaps released onto the market large supplies
of metal for central European use. The Urnfield tradition occurred widely in regions
later occupied by iron age Celts and some scholars would go so far as to apply the
label of 'proto-Celts' to the people to whom this Bronze Age culture belonged.
During the eighth century Be, 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, some-
times 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 recognized 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 Be 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 feast-
ing 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.
Archaeological evidence suggests that, by the early fifth century Be, the centres
of power and wealth 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