CHAPTER THIRTY
CELTS OF EASTERN EUROPE
--.... --
Elizabeth Jerem
INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY OF RESEARCH
B
efore we start to look at recent developments in the study of eastern Celtic
culture, it is necessary to review past discoveries.
At the beginning of this century, Reinecke (1902, 191 I, [1965]) pointed out that
Celtic artefacts show not only chronological but also regional differences. He was
describing the earliest La Tene grave goods from north-east Bavaria; and by
comparing these with chronologically similar materials he was able to conclude that
the eastern provinces were quite distinct within the La Tene area. The most
important characteristic of this eastern material is that it bears witness to strong links
with Italy, especially with the Venetic culture Qacobsthal 1944; Kruta 1986;
Moosleitner 1985, 1991; Pauli 1991, 1994). The Veneti also functioned as middlemen
through whom Etruscan cultural traits were transmitted to their Celtic neighbours
north of the Alps.
It was not until much later that Reinecke's fundamental observations concerning
the eastern early La Tene culture and its marked connection with the classical world
were corroborated by later finds and new research. Kossack (1982) sums up the
history of research in his study 'Siidbayern im 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Zur Frage der
Dberlieferungskontinuitat'. In this he draws particular attention to the rise of the
Illyrian theory in the early 1930S (Kersten 1933). At about this time Bittel (1934) and
later Giessler-Kraft (1942 [1950]) felt justified in proposing that a Celtic population
could already be identified in the middle Rhine area and in south-west Germany
during the Hallstatt period. They noted, like Kersten, that the Hallstatt cemeteries
show a continuity of population. The same situation could not be readily assumed
for the eastern area, since at that time no characteristic late Hallstatt or early La Tene
material had been identified in those parts. For this reason and in particular because
of the lack of comparable western early La Tene artefacts, it was generally believed
that the Hallstatt culture, or the population groups with whom it was associated, had
continued in the whole eastern area into the early La Tene. Only the individuals
buried in 'flat cemeteries' were regarded as 'Celts', and considered to be immigrants
in the sense of ethnically intrusive, the concept favoured by these authors (Hunyady
1944; Pittioni 1954, 1959; Willvonseder 1953). By way of a compromise it was