Few centres of the kind cited above existed during this period in temperate Europe. Small communities characterized all of the landscapes (on community size, see Wells 1984: 133), and expression of marked status differences in burials decreased. The activities of the crafts industries that had produced such special goods as bronze vessels and gold ornaments declined.
The two industries that are best represented are ironworking and bronze-casting. In the thousands of cemeteries known from this period, men’s graves are characteristically equipped with iron weapons, women’s with bronze Jewellery, sometimes in substantial quantities (Bujna 1982; Kramer 1985). Much more iron was produced than before, and the techniques of manufacture were refined. Since iron is widely available in temperate Europe, most communities probably produced their own metal. Bujna (1982: 421) attributes the great increase in quantities of iron produced to the needs of military expeditions that Geltic peoples made to Italy, Greece and eastern Europe. Even though communities were small, the practice of burying weapons meant regular consumption of metal - buried swords, spears and shields required replacement. Smiths working in the small communities of this period are imlikely to have liecn full-time specialists, unless they made iron implements for .her communities ' 'csides their own.
Similarly, the occurrence of sizeable amounts of bronze jewellery in women’s graves indicates ongoing production of personal ornaments. Much of the jewellery shows highly skilled workmanship, suggesting part-time if not full-time specialist bronzesmiths.
Late Period (200 BC-Roman conquest)
The final two centuries before Christ represent the culmination in resource extraction and industrial activity in Celtic Europe. The quantities of many materials extracted from the environment, especially iron for tools and weapons and stone and wood for the construction of oppidum walls, was much larger than ever before. Many of the products of manufacturing activity indicate a level of specialization that researchers believe results from a profound change in the organization of manufacturing, from a largely domestic, kin-based system to one based instead on specialized occupational activity (Meduna 1980: 157; Audouze and Buchsenschutz 1989: 303; Gebhard 1989; 185).
The oppida were centres for resource exploitation and industrial production of goods. The evidence is most abundant at Manching, but similar results are emerging from other sites, especially among the intensively researched Bohemian and Moravian oppida. Serial or mass-production is first evident at the oppida with large quantities of objects such as knives, axes, hammers, nails and clamps forged of iron (Jacobi 1974). Gebhard (1989) interprets the great quantities of glass bracelets manufactured as indicating mass-production aimed at export trade.
The fast-turning potter’s wheel came into general use late in the second century BC, and led to mass-production of ceramics at the oppida and to increased standization of vessel forms across Celtic Europe (Arcelin 1981; Roualet and Charpy 1987). In the large quantities and striking uniformity of vessels at the major oppida, Pingel (1971; 82) sees evidence for centralized pottery production.
For Bibracte, Hrazany, Manching, and some other oppida, investigators have interpreted spatial evidence on the excavated surfaces as indicating special areas where production activities were concentrated (Capelle 1979). Yet others challenge this interpretation. For Bibracte, it is not clear whether the workshop quarter belonged to the pre-Roman or to the post-conquest settlement (Duval 1991). At other oppida, not enough evidence has been collected to speak confidently of industrial areas within the settlements. Current results from Stare ITradisko (Meduna 1970; Cizmaf 1989a) and Zavist (Cizmaf 1989b; Motykova, Drda and Rybova 1990) seem to indicate instead many small-scale production areas within the oppidum. At many sites, such as ITrazany in Bohemia (Jansova 1987; 71), ironworking and bronze-casting locations have been identified near gates in the walls, presumably because metal production generates noxious fumes that people wanted to keep away from the middle of the settlement. The accumulating evidence for industry at the oppida suggests full-time industrial specialists at some sites. Since at present we know little about the leadership structure at the oppida, it is difficult to suggest who directed, and benefited from, the work of the specialists.
Fundamental to the growth of the oppida and of the industries that they housed was the great increase in agricultural productivity during this period. The proliferation of new iron tools made that change possible (Meduna 1980: 154). The iron ploughshare, coulter, and scythe first came into regular use, and they made possible faster ploughing, opening of heavier, more fertile soils, and more efficient harvesting of grasses for fodder. The rotary quern increased the efficiency of grinding grain several hundred per cent, according to modern experiments (Waldhauser 1981).
Recent discovery of evidence for manufacturing, often on a substantial scale, at smaller, unenclosed settlements necessitates a rethinking of the organization of industry at the end of the Iron Age. At a growing number of excavated small settlements such as Aulnat (Collis 1980) and Levroux (Audouze and Buchsenschutz 1989: 306-7) in south-western France, and Berching-Pollanten in northern Bavaria (Fischer, Rieckhoff-Pauli and Spindler 1984), ironworking, bronze-casting, and coin-minting were carried out. Msec in Bohemia was a specialized iron-smelting site (Pleiner and Princ 1984). At Strachotin in Moravia (Cizmaf 1987), iron-working and textile production are apparent, and pottery appears to have been manufactured on a large scale, suggestive of specialized production for export. In Britain, the small settlement of Gussage All Saints (Wainwright 1979) yielded abundant evidence for the casting of bronze harness ornaments, almost certainly for use by persons who did not live in the community. It is apparent now that the oppida, while clearly focal points for intensive and specialized production for surrounding landscapes, did not maintain monopolies on such production. Considerably more excavation, on both oppidum and smaller settlements, as well as more detailed comparison of the products of different communities, is needed, before we can develop a better understanding of the organization of industry in this period.
It Is significant that in this final stage of the Celtic Iron Age, metal tools appeared In graves (Kramer 1985: 34). At St Georgen in Lower Austria (Taus 1963), a set of smith’s tools, including tongs, a hammer and shears, accompanied a burial. (The find at Celles in south-western France, long considered contents of a smith’s grave outfitted with a large quantity of iron tools, has been reinterpreted recently as a possible settlement find [Guillaumet 1983]). The burial of tools with deceased workers may be symbolic of the Increased specialization of such crafts as Iron production, pottery manufacture and jewellery-making in the final two centuries before Christ.
The large-scale, specialized industrial activity at the major settlements of the Late Iron Age was targeted, at least in large part, at export trade (Bujna 1982: 421). Distributions of such products of Celtic workshops as painted pottery, graphite-clay ceramics, glass bracelets, bronze cauldrons and iron swords, in lands beyond the Celtic territories, illustrates the important connection between industry and trade at the end of the Iron Age.
World History
