It would be an error to consider Celtic Gaul and the Mediterranean world as in absolute opposition. Gallic tribes and Mediterranean city-states, although divided by language and culture, had maintained close contacts for several centuries before the conquest led to their fusion. Provence and Languedoc, at the crossroads of the Rhone valley with the route between Italy and Spain, came under many influences. This is translated into an incredible wealth of archaeological remains in these areas, which display diverse cultural impacts. Research in this area has been advancing rapidly for forty years and here we can only outline the main results.
The Indigenous population during the Iron Age was in contact with the colonizers, first the Phoenicians, and then with the Greeks who founded Massalia and Ampurias. Trading stations multiplied not only along the Mediterranean littoral, but also up the Rhone as far as Arles. The influence of these colonies on the indigenous way of life and its economy is very clear, even if the territory, up to the gates of Marseilles itself, was still controlled by the latter until the first century BC. The third-century Punic wars led Carthaginian and Roman armies to traverse the region and to conclude alliances that divided the local population, while favouring contacts with these Mediterranean cultures. Was it an extension of the Massaliote chora, or warlike tension on the part of the native population that provoked the conflicts of 125-120 BC? It was, in any case, a good pretext for the intervention of the Romans, who wanted to obtain a land link to their Spanish territories, to exploit a rich province and to ensure a base for their traders from which to extend northwards into the markets of Gaul.
The climate and vegetation of these southerly regions were different from those in the rest of the Celtic world, and geographical differences in themselves are sufficient to explain many differences between the way of life of their populations and those of more northerly residents. Thus the available building materials were stone and earth rather than wood. The need to erect structures to resist extremes of heat on one hand, and wind and storms on the other, led to an architecture which was radically different from that in more temperate parts of the country. It would be difficult for the archaeologist to identify cultural unity from material remains in the face of such different living conditions.
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 mudbnck 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 BC in the richer settlements.
Even though it has to be acknowledged that little is known about lowland settlements, because of difficulties m identifying them, the general tendency during the Iron Age seems to be towards the clustering of houses in hilltop sites. From the fourth century BC 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 (Card) (Py 1978), Martigues (Bouches-du-Rhone ) (Figure 29.10) (Chausserie-Lapree et al. 1985) and Lattes (Flerault) (Py 1988) show that this kind of pre-urban layout was widespread: It was also destined to continue m 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 (190/170 BC), 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 150/140 BC 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 BC. 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 BC), native settlements became poorer, indications of storage capacity for surpluses decreased and the tally of imports declined. M. Py sees a possible explanation 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).
Figure 29.10 (a) General plan of the village at Martigues (Bouches du Rhone) and overleaf (b) reconstruction of a lane and of a house. (After Dessin D. Delpalillo, Dossiers Histoire et
Archeologie No. 128, June 1988.)
(b)
Despite these distinctive characteristics, Languedoc and Provence have a number of points in common with the continental Celtic world. The development of craft industries, commerce and urbanization were characteristic of the second century BC in both areas. Numerous inscriptions on gravestones attest to the use of a Celtic language in Provence. The famous sanctuaries, such as those at Roquepertuse or Entremont, present an iconography, incised in stone, which is analogous with that of more northerly regions. In terms of more prosaic items, the metal artefacts from all periods of the Second Iron Age in the Midi are easier to parallel on the Swiss plateau than within Mediterranean cultures. Some objects may have been imported, but we know for example that bracelets and fibulae were produced in the Midi according to typical La Tene designs. In this respect, the south acted as an active, innovating province of La Tene culture.
To the west of this region, weapons from the cemetery at Enserune, which are typical La Tene products, attest the permanent presence of warriors who fought like Celts. Should one deduce from this a borrowing of fighting styles by the local population, the presence of mercenaries, or the existence of a real colony of Celts? Recent research has shown that the local population had not fundamentally changed since the Late Bronze Age. It underwent and absorbed multiple influences, which were adapted to its distinctive natural environment. As often happens m Europe, as soon as the earliest written texts appear they describe the inhabitants as Celts. But we arc not in a position to say whether the latter were native, whether they were mixed with an earlier population or whether they had replaced such groups.
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