- Chapter Twenty-Nine -
Archaeologists emphasize the modest dimensions of houses: a single room which
hardly ever exceeded 15 square metres in the early period. Post-built structures
were gradually replaced by those with weight-bearing walls, and wood was replaced
by stone and above all earth-based materials. Recent excavations have uncovered
numerous mud brick or daub structures. Dwellings with several rooms or second
storeys do not appear until the second century and become more common in the first
century Be in the richer settlements.
Even though it has to be acknowledged that little is known about lowland settle-
ments, because of difficulties in identifying them, the general tendency during the Iron
Age seems to be towards the clustering of houses in hilltop sites. From the fourth
century Be fortifications appear: their defences are nearly always dry-stone and
enclose a large number of stone-built houses within a restricted area of, at most, several
hectares. These buildings, identical in design and positioned in a clearly organized
fashion along parallel streets, are indicative of the existence of established plans and
by extension suggest highly organized societies. Forts like Nages (Gard) (Py 1978),
Martigues (Bouches-du-Rhone ) (Figure 29. ro) (Chausserie-Lapree et at. 1985) and
Lattes (Herault) (Py 1988) show that this kind of pre-urban layout was widespread:
it was also destined to continue in use for a very long time in these regions.
The recent resumption of excavations at Entremont (Bouches-du-Rhone) (Arcelin
1989) shows how this kind of settlement developed, at a late date, into a town. The
earliest settlement at Entremont (I 9o/r 70 Be), sometimes called the upper town,
retained archaic charateristics, with small blocks of housing made up of identical huts
backed onto a shared medial wall. In the more recent, lower town (laid out about
I 50/r40 Be and surrounded by an imposing stone fortification), we can already see
the organization of rooms into houses with three or four units, as well as working
space for artisans, and the development of two-storey dwellings; public buildings
make a first appearance. Specifically urban activities, such as craft industries and
trade, appear before the Roman conquest here, but relatively late in the Iron Age.
As elsewhere, these activities are focused on sites in regions that were nearest to
the trade axes. In hundreds of little hilltop fortifications, scattered in the garrigue of
Languedoc and especially in the hills of Provence, settlement continued on a modest
scale and in the traditional manner.
Scholars have insisted on the survival of traditions inherited from the Bronze
Age of the Midi. Society remained strictly family-based, and one can speak of a
domestic economy dominated by agriculture. Though the Greek colonies could upset
this autarchic set-up, they did not, however, manage to infiltrate the traditional social
organization before the second century Be. A model of the economic development of
these sites can be constructed on the basis of the identification of surpluses in local
production and the quantification of the imported artefacts recovered from native
settlements. At first, the presence of the Greeks stimulated production and exchange
conferred benefits for both parties. In the middle phase of the Second Iron
Age (400-100 Be), native settlements became poorer, indications of storage capacity
for surpluses decreased and the tally of imports declined. M. Py sees a possible expla-
nation for this in the intervention of Massalia, which would have gradually developed
a more imperialistic policy towards the hinterland, putting a levy on its production
and monopolizing trade (Py 1990: 199).
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