Before Gaesar, the only texts that mention the Atlantic coastlands relate to the expeditions made by Himilco and Pytheas. It was primarily the search for tin which underpinned trade with these distant regions. This quest probably offers the best explanation for the presence of artefacts of Mediterranean origin as far north as the mouth of the Loire as early as the First Iron Age. Archaeological evidence of these contacts is thereafter difficult to perceive until the second century BC, when Gampanian pottery was distributed to the Charente valley, but no further northwestwards. Slightly later, wine amphorae were exchanged as far as Armorica and southern England, but in small numbers. Distribution maps show concentrations at ports, but recent discoveries show that our information on the overall pattern is still very incomplete.
A number of traits are shared by the western peninsulas from Gornwall and Armorica to Galicia. It is thus possible to contrast a western community with a continental one. Current research, however, extends beyond simply contrasting an Atlantic tradition and continental Celtic influence, to define a range of indigenous cultures and their economic development at the local scale (Duval 1990).
The establishment of absolute chronology is the main difficulty facing the archaeologist working on these regions. The rarity of Mediterranean imports and the absence of large cemeteries with rich artefactual assemblages hinder the definition of the precise sequencing that is feasible in eastern France. In Armorica, M.-Y. Daire’s research allows us to classify different ceramic traditions: graphite pottery; vases with stamped decoration; pot with red-painted decoration; and vases with internally channelled rims (Daire 1987). But the types of pottery thus defined are restricted to a few hundred items and the available typologies only indicate general trends. R. Boudet has put forward a chronology for Aquitaine which identifies five horizons between the sixth and first centuries BC (Boudet 1987). His scheme takes into account information from both settlements and tombs, the two stratified sites at La Lede du Gurp and Lacoste (both Gironde) providing stratigraphic controls. Although drawing attention to the fragility of this chronological scheme, which relies heavily on data from Languedoc, T. Lejars used it as the basis for his analysis of the western territories as a whole (Lejars 1987).
Our knowledge of the cultures of Armorica has made considerable progress during the past twenty years, thanks to very active research teams which have benefited from the examination of sites revealed as cropmarks by successive years of drought or identified through the requirements of rescue operations. The picture that we have thus gained of the Second Iron Age in Brittany is that it was distinctive and varied. The countryside of the time was deforested, an open landscape lacking the tissue of small hedged fields, formerly considered as typically Celtic m this region but now known not to predate the late Middle Ages. Leaving aside the heathland, the cultivated ground bore cereals and vegetables, among which must be noted the presence of buckwheat and beans. We know little of stock-farming as the soil is too acidic to preserve bone material. Both the discovery of bipyramidal ingots and the comments of Caesar and Strabo on the frequency of chains in the equipment of boats, bear witness to the working of iron on a substantial scale. From the north coast of Brittany to the Vendee region there is evidence of salt-working, salt being extracted from sea brine in ovens equipped with pans and then made into blocks.
The results of aerial survey have entirely changed our understanding of the settlement record. Settlement is dominantly dispersed: houses and associated outbuildings are often grouped within enclosures. As yet, villages are unknown, except on the Alet (C6tes-du-Nord) and Quiberon (Morbihan) peninsulas, where clusters of about ten dwellings are known. Hill-forts and associated categories of sites are not unknown in Brittany: there are small coastal cliff-castles and larger inland forts (Figure 29.6). Some date back to the First Iron Age and all, or nearly all, were occupied at the end of the Second. If the close links proposed by M. Wheeler between the use of these fortifications and various events during the Gallic War are now open to question, as first noted by Hawkes (1958), recent work has failed to tackle the definition of their functions, be it as simple refuges or as pre-urban centres. The architecture of houses is varied: we know of small post-built circular and rectangular structures. There are many buildings defined archaeologically by the presence of low dry-stone walls which are, with one exception, rectilinear in outline. Post-built granaries are attested, but most storage was done underground, in souter-rains which have long been known throughout the Armorican peninsula. This kind of structure seems to have been replaced by substantial, if no longer subterranean, pits in later times.
The funerary rituals are also distinctive. Cremation predominates and grave goods are generally limited to a few bracelets and sometimes some glass beads. The earliest phase is characterized by stone cists covered by small cairns. Later, larger mounds placed over stone circles are found, as are cremations without a covering mound. Stone cists for crouched inhumations add to this variety. On the other hand, much of Armorica is characterized by the presence of stone stelae; examples that are both low and almost spherical, or tall and sometimes faceted, are known. In several cases, it has been possible to link these pillars with cremations. These stelae, supplemented by the incised figure from Paule (Figure 29.7), are evidence that stoneworking techniques were better developed in Brittany than in many regions of the Celtic world at that time.
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