Geography offers Burgundy a key position in both north-south and east-west contacts. At the western extremity of the Alpine arc, Vix, Autun, Vienne and Lyons are to be found at the apex of a fan-shaped zone which opens onto the valleys of the Loire, Seine, Saone-Rhone and Doubs, the last leading directly towards the Rhine. The historic record began earlier here than elsewhere in temperate France, and the phases of its development succeeded each other more rapidly.
Here, the First Iron Age had a remarkable final phase, being famous notably for its princely tombs. The Vix (Cote d’Or) princess was laid out in a burial chamber protected by a mound at the foot of the Mont Lassois fortified settlement. Next to a parade chariot encased in bronze fitments, which bears witness to the skills of local craftsmen, the famous vase tells of the close diplomatic links which linked local aristocrats to the distant Greek cities of southern Italy. Wine-drinking equipment and gold ornaments show the wealth and ostentatious way of life of an aristocracy which had taken advantage of its privileged relationship with Mediterranean societies in order to consolidate its power over the local population. We are at the heart of a ‘prestige goods economy’ which functioned perfectly in this area, readily open to commerce. At the foot of the Jura mountains and along the Doubs valley, burial mounds and neighbouring small upland fortified settlement sites have been identified, recalling the pattern known widely in the west Hallstatt province. Recent discoveries, at two locations within the town of Bourges, indicate that Greek pottery imports also reached Berry. Was the Avaricum of Caesar’s text preceded by a major Hallstatt agglomeration? This hypothesis needs support from further discoveries, but is not at all unlikely.
Although the evidence from Hallstatt strongholds indicates aristocratic residences rather than proto-urban centres, such sites are, however, distinct from the mass of settlement units in the countryside because of a concentration on craft activities identifiable within them. One sees this in Germany at the Heuneburg, and the abundant artefacts recovered from Mont Lassois suggest a similar situation must have prevailed there.
A new perspective is offered by the results of excavations taking place at Bragny-sur-Saone (Saone-et-Loire). Here, evidence of the import of Mediterranean wares throughout the fifth century BC has been found on an unenclosed settlement set beside the river. This site is not merely a port for the break-in-bulk of materials which were destined for the hinterland. Craft activities were numerous and intensive, especially the iron-working industry. We may note on this site the beginnings of the combination of activities on a site which is clearly different from those which remain rooted in the traditional agricultural framework.
The extent of the influence of these long-distance exchanges has been shown by the discovery of a small hamlet at Lyon-Vaise. In a modest agricultural settlement near the Saone, Greek and Massaliote imports were discovered, demonstrating that imports were far from uniquely restricted to the princely sites.
In these eastern areas, the evidence from the early and middle La Tene periods is more diffuse than that of the late First Iron Age. Cemeteries have often been found through aerial survey, because of the cropmarks 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 BC, 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 collection 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 frameworks 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 BC. 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 in transactions. Many questions remain unanswered about the use and significance of these coinages. Were the flan-shaped moulds, which are frequently found on these settlements, used for the production of coins? What is the exact role of the cast bronze potin coinages which have distributions restricted precisely to central-east Gaul from an early date, possibly from the end of the second century BC? Did Massalia set these economic developments in train before the Roman annexation of Provence, or did that city manage subsequently to impose its standards, albeit temporarily, before the Roman merchants took over control of all the trade? It is m the fan-shaped area, centred on Lyons and defined above, that the answers to such questions will be found.
The tribal territory {civitas) of the Aedui lies in the heart of this zone. If one is to believe Caesar’s evidence in De Bello Gallico, the Aedui made the most of the new economic situation, developing craft industries, long-distance trade links, and political alliances with Rome. The Sequani and Bituriges were not slow to follow this trend. This is borne out by the development of oppida in their territories, for such sites mark the last stage in the evolutionary development of still-independent Gaul.
For a long time, scholars considered that the development of craft industries and commerce, which we have just mentioned, were phenomena associated with the enclosed settlements termed ‘oppida’. In this part of Gaul, at least, and as far east as the Rhine valley, oppida appear later than the artisan villages, with their ranges of diversified activities. At Levroux (Figure 29.8), for example, there is a physical shift from the lowland artisanal village upslope to the oppidum during the last century BC. The latter comes into existence as a result of a conscious move from the preexisting settlement to a neighbouring hill, this latter surrounded by a rampart protecting about 20 hectares. The fortification of oppida is not limited to the weak points on their defensive circuits, those that natural topography does not protect. It is rather a matter of marking out the boundaries of a tract of territory with special characteristics than of simply ensuring defence. These sites maintained the tradition of fortification on high ground, perhaps because of its religious or symbolic value: permanent settlements were, however, installed within their enclosures, along with craft industries and commercial activities which seem paradoxical in such inaccessible places.
The case of Mont Beuvray (Saone-et-Loire/Nievre), Caesar’s Bibracte, is typical. A settlement, the inner enclosure around it covering 135 hectares, is perched on a summit in the Morvan uplands, at an altitude of 800 m 15 km from the neighbouring valleys. This enclosure is defined by a rampart forming an uninterrupted circuit and constructed in murus gallicus style - a prestige fortification with an internal timber framework into which thousands of long iron spikes have been angered. Its gates are gigantic, in the extreme case defined by a 20-m wide passage lying between two inturned sectors of fortification, over 40 m long (Figure 29.9). This effort to demarcate the settlement and to render the entrance to it so remarkable suggests that the settlement had a special status. A truly urban space has been isolated from the countryside, probably with its own laws and control over the movement of people and of merchandise. Within the settlement, crafts thrived, powerful inhabitants built themselves vast houses, and monumental collective constructions have been identified in the pre-Roman levels (Beck et al. 1987; Guillaumet 1987).
Figure 29.8 Successive relocations of the settlement at Levroux (indre), after Btichsenschiitz. Unenclosed settlement of middle/early Late (i. e. C/Di) La Tene date at Les Arenes; oppidum of the Colline des Tours; Roman town.
East-central Gaul is constantly mentioned in Caesar’s text. It is where most of the oppida he names were located, where his allies were based, and also where the final act of the conquest was enacted. It would not have been possible to control the Germans, Belgae and Bretons for long, as they were tough fighters in battle and elusive on their own territories, if the east-central tribal territories (civitates), which were already partially integrated into the Mediterranean economy and heading towards urbanization, had not already been brought into line with the Roman political will.
Figure 29.9 Plan of the murus gallicus-slyc defences at the start of the Porte du Rcbout gateway at the oppidum of Mont Beuvray (Saone-et-Loire and Nievre). The hachurcs (‘tadpoles’) define the positions of former timbering. (After O. Biichsenschiitz, J.-P. Guillaumct and I.
Ralston.)
The coalitions led by the Aedui, friends of the Roman people and active participants in international commerce, and the Arverni, the last Gallic champions of political and perhaps cultural resistance against the legions, were short-lived and opportunistic. On Caesar’s testimony, the whole of Gaul was internally divided, both as regards its civitates (tribal units) and within individual families. The dilemma existed less at the scale of individual nations - an alliance with Rome being no more questionable than an accord with a neighbouring civitas - than at the level of the choice of life style. Urbanization or countryside, stone and mortar or earth and wood, Gallic ale or red wine? By 52 BC Gaul as far east as the Rhine had already oscillated in and out of the Mediterranean orbit for a long time, and thus the conquest was no more than a political and military formality to processes already long under way.
World History
