- The Celts in France -
through aerial survey, because of the crop marks of the enclosures that surround the
graves. A careful analysis of the contents of tombs allows regional fashions to be
distinguished: grave goods, whether ceramics or weapons, vary from one group to
another. During the past ten years, major rescue operations have revealed the
presence of isolated farms and the indistinct remnants of field systems, but this
evidence has not yet been adequately synthesized: its dating, too, is still subject to a
considerable measure of uncertainty.
During the second century Be, the appearance of settlement agglomerations
incorporating a mixture of agricultural and craft activities represented a new stage in
the social and economic evolution of Gaul. Along the Saone, Doubs and Rhine but
also away from the major river valleys as at Levroux (Indre) (Biichsenschiitz 1988)
or at Les Alleuds (Maine-et-Loire) (Dr Gruet, pers. comm.) field survey has by good
fortune led to the identification of a series of settlements extending to 5 to 10 hectares
which belong to this period. Close to the houses, which are generally poorly
preserved, dozens of pits have been infilled with an extraordinarily abundant collec-
tion of objects: bones, pottery and also much evidence of craft activities. This last-
mentioned is characterized first and foremost by the substantial quantities of
associated waste that has been recovered. Iron slag and tapslag can be readily
collected in quantity: tens of kilograms of such waste products are easily obtained.
In addition, careful study of the material excavated from the pits reveals extremely
specialized and standardized production. This applies not only to bronze- and
ironworking, but also to the glass industry and to work in bone. Here, artisan
production is no longer an individual activity of marginal significance in comparison
with agriculture. The quantity and nature of the remains from these villages is
indicative of the development of production by groups of artisans, representing a
permanent activity conducted by an important group of individuals, who produced
wealth by a new means. The increasing scale of metal production is marked, amongst
other things, by the first substantial use of iron nails in assembling the timber frame-
works of houses.
These settlements also provide us with clear evidence of active and strictly
mercantile trade. Amphorae are the most obvious sign of this. Such containers are to
be found in their thousands in the Saone valley, where one must picture river-ports
at which the commodities were regularly unloaded. The numbers of amphorae are
still substantial even at sites removed from the main river networks, as at Levroux or
Les Alleuds. These are dominantly early, Republican amphorae (of Dressel la type),
with some Graeco-Italic examples which indicate that this trade began as early as the
second century Be. We have little information on the types of products which
were exchanged for wine: doubtless cured pork, cloth, iron objects and slaves were
important commodities. But the huge efforts of the Roman exporter to dispatch these
heavy wine-jars north in substantial quantities is indicative of contacts of a wholly
different nature from the glamorous presents sent by the Greeks to the Hallstatt
princes to try to gain access to routes to the sources of tin.
The Gauls had entered into a rapidly developing economic system. The clearest
indication of this is the production of coins in these little settlements. These are no
longer heavy gold staters but lighter, less valuable, coinages struck in silver, with
weights in line with western Greek and Roman standards so that they could be used