It is important to distinguish between circulation of goods within the Celtic lands and that between Celtic lands and those of other peoples. For the period between 600 BC and the birth of Christ, similarities in material culture and human behaviour throughout the Celtic lands make it apparent that we are dealing with a single ‘culture’ on some level (Pauli 1980; Hachmann, Kossack and Kuhn 1962; Moscati et al. 1991), though regional variations in style of ornament and in features of burial practice and settlement structure are always present.
Trade within the Celtic lands is apparent both in a variety of raw materials (see above) and in manufactured goods. Metals, salt and substances used for ornaments (lignite and jet, for example) were traded throughout the period, and commerce intensified in the final two centuries of the Iron Age. Circulation of manufactured goods increased greatly at that time, and the evidence shows that pottery, glass ornaments and coins produced at the centres were traded to smaller communities in the countryside. Each category of material provides insight into the character of these trade systems (Kappel 1969; Maier 1970; Gebhard 1989), and coins are among the most informative (Kellner 1990). The place of origin of many Celtic coins can be determined, and large quantities are recovered on settlements and in hoards throughout Europe, providing excellent insight into trade during the final centuries of the Iron Age (Nash 1978; Allen 1980).
In trade and exchange between Celtic lands and other culture-areas, amber from the Baltic region and coral from the Mediterranean are raw materials that were regularly imported. Both were used for ornamentation, carved into beads and as inlay for metal jewellery, and both possessed magical meaning for the Celtic peoples (Pauli 1975). Aside from these substances, trade with foreign lands was primarily in finished goods.
Most striking is the complex of objects from the Mediterranean world that arrived in substantial quantities from the sixth century BC to the time of the Roman conquest. The interaction between Celtic Europe and the Mediterranean societies, of which this trade was a part, was important for economic, social and artistic developments in the second half of the Iron Age {Les Princes celtes et la Mediterranee 1988). Predominant among the southern imports are various kinds of bronze and ceramic vessels associated with wine-drinking that were made in Greek, Etruscan and Roman workshops. Ceramic amphorae in which wine was transported occur at the centres of the sixth century BC and at the oppida of the final two centuries BC, as well as in some graves of both periods. The distribution of amphorae (Figure 13.1; Fitzpatrick 1985) reflects primarily the availability of water routes for transportation rather than the distribution of traded wine. Ancient writers mention wooden barrels and skin bags for use in wine transport (Wells 1980: 66), and these containers would have been much more efficient for overland travel.
Figure 13.1 Map showing distribution of ceramic amphorae from the Greek world on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Profile in upper left indicates shape of the amphorae. Solid dots: land finds. Open dots: amphorae on shipwrecks. Note especially the locations in eastern France, Switzerland and south-western Germany, (From Kimmig 1983: 36, fig, 27; reproduced with permission from the Rbmisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz,)
The series of imported bronze vessels began with the so-called Rhodian jugs that appear in graves of the first half of the sixth century BC, and continued into the Roman period. The vessels included unique objects such as the Grachwll hydria, the Vix krater and the Flochdorf cauldron, all dating to the sixth century BC, but also undistinctive objects that belong to larger groups such as the Etruscan
Schnabelkannen, mostly of the fifth century BC (Figure 13-2), and the Kelheim and Kaerumgaard-type jugs of the final century BC (Werner 1978). These wine-associated vessel imports, both bronze and ceramic, are most abundant during the sixth and fifth centuries BC and again during the second and first centuries BC (Fischer 1985; Svobodova 1983), but objects such as the bronze buckets from Waldalgesheim in the middle Rhineland and Mannersdorf in Austria, and the two glass masks from St Sulpice on Lake Geneva in Switzerland (Wyss 1989: 167-8) show that this import trade was maintained on some level throughout the Iron Age.
Figure 13,2 Distribution map of Etruscan htonze Schnabelkannen. Profile in upper left shows shape of the jugs. Most are believed to have been manufactured at Vulci on the Tyrrhenian coast of Central Italy. Note the dense concentration m the middle Rhineland, and other finds in France to the west and Bohemia and Austria to the east. (From Kimmig 1983: 41, fig. 3a; reproduced with permission from the Romisch-Germanisches /Centralmuseum, Mainz.)
Because of the spectacular nature of the Vix krater and other wine-associated imports, the wine trade has attracted considerable research attention, but other categories of imports show that the interaction between the Mediterranean world and central Europe was diverse. For example, the Grafenbiihl grave of around 500 BC (Ziirn 1970) contained ornamental sphinxes of amber, bone and ivory, and remains of furniture from the Mediterranean world. Grave 6 in the Hohmichele tumulus at the Heuneburg included silk textiles (Hundt 1969), from the East. At the oppida, surgical instruments, balances, mirrors, fibulae, finger-rings, cameos, glass vessels and bone writing implements from the Roman world are well represented (Svobodova 1985). Archaeological evidence for the goods that were traded for all of the Mediterranean imports is sparse. Textual evidence suggests that the Celtic communities were supplying raw materials and organic products - things that would not survive archaeologically in recognizable form (Wells 1984).
Export trade from the Celtic lands in other directions is attested archaeologically, however. Glass ornaments, probably manufactured at the major oppida, are well represented north of the Celtic regions, for example in the Netherlands (Peddemors 1975) and in Thuringia (Lappe 1979), and Gebhard (1989: 185) suggests that the Celtic glass industry was producing specifically for export trade in the final phase of the Iron Age. Graphite-clay pottery has been found at sites in regions north of the Celtic lands as well (Kappel 1969) and was probably an export item. Fine painted pottery of late La Tene type occurs north of the Celtic production areas (Figure 13.3) and apparently was traded into those regions. Iron weapons made by Celtic smiths were traded northward (Eggers 1951: 38; Frey 1986), as were bronze cauldrons, which are well represented on the North European Plain (Redlich 1980) and occur even further north (Hachmann 1990: 652, fig. 24). The stylistically ‘Celtic’ cauldrons from Denmark, such as those from Bra, Gundestrup and Rynkeby, may have been manufactured in Celtic workshops in central Europe (Frey 1985: 257; Hachmann 1990), but many investigators now argue for a Danish or, in the case of Gundestrup, south-eastern European origin (Megaw and Megaw 1989: 176).
World History
