- Chapter Twenty-Nine -
we have thus gained of the Second Iron Age in Brittany is that it was distinctive and
varied. The countryside of the time was deforested, an open landscape lacking the
tissue of small hedged fields, formerly considered as typically Celtic in this region
but now known not to predate the late Middle Ages. Leaving aside the heathland,
the cultivated ground bore cereals and vegetables, among which must be noted the
presence of buckwheat and beans. We know little of stock-farming as the soil is too
acidic to preserve bone material. Both the discovery of bipyramidal ingots and the
comments of Caesar and Strabo on the frequency of chains in the equipment of
boats, bear witness to the working of iron on a substantial scale. From the north
coast of Brittany to the Vendee region there is evidence of salt-working, salt being
extracted from sea brine in ovens equipped with pans and then made into blocks.
The results of aerial survey have entirely changed our understanding of the
settlement record. Settlement is dominantly dispersed: houses and associated out-
buildings are often grouped within enclosures. As yet, villages are unknown, except
on the Alet (Cotes-du-Nord) and Quiberon (Morbi han) peninsulas, where clusters
of about ten dwellings are known. Hill-forts and associated categories of sites are
not unknown in Brittany: there are small coastal cliff-castles and larger inland
forts (Figure 29.6). Some date back to the First Iron Age and all, or nearly all, were
occupied at the end of the Second. If the close links proposed by M. Wheeler
between the use of these fortifications and various events during the Gallic War are
now open to question, as first noted by Hawkes (1958), recent work has failed to
tackle the definition of their functions, be it as simple refuges or as pre-urban centres.
The architecture of houses is varied: we know of small post-built circular and
rectangular structures. There are many buildings defined archaeologically by the
presence of low dry-stone walls which are, with one exception, rectilinear in outline.
Post-built granaries are attested, but most storage was done underground, in souter-
rains which have long been known throughout the Armorican peninsula. This kind
of structure seems to have been replaced by substantial, if no longer subterranean,
pits in later times.
The funerary rituals are also distinctive. Cremation predominates and grave goods
are generally limited to a few bracelets and sometimes some glass beads. The earliest
phase is characterized by stone cists covered by small cairns. Later, larger mounds
placed over stone circles are found, as are cremations without a covering mound.
Stone cists for crouched inhumations add to this variety. On the other hand, much
of Armorica is characterized by the presence of stone stelae; examples that are both
low and almost spherical, or tall and sometimes faceted, are known. In several cases,
it has been possible to link these pillars with cremations. These stelae, supplemented
by the incised figure from Paule (Figure 29.7), are evidence that stoneworking
techniques were better developed in Brittany than in many regions of the Celtic
world at that time.
THE MASSIF CENTRAL AND THE HEARTLAND OF GAUL
The Massif Central, even today hardly touched by motorways and high-speed trains,
was in ancient times both a refuge and a sanctuary as well as an inexhaustible reservoir