GAUL

The Mediterranean littoral has a very different history from the areas to the north. It came under early Influence from the developing cultures of the classical world, of the Greeks, the Phoenicians and Etruscans, as early as the seventh century BC, and this process of contact was accelerated with the foundation of the Greek colonies, of which Massalia, founded around 600 BC by the Phocaeans, quickly gained supremacy. Inland a wide variety of small defended sites appeared, some such as the Cayla de Mailhac as early as the eighth to seventh century.

The majority of sites, however, start after the period of the Greek colonies, and their earliest levels produce Attic black - or red-figure ware, and from the fifth century onwards the settlement pattern was highly nucleated with, it appears, most, if not all, the population living In nucleated defended sites. In character these might vary from small defended villages such as Les Pennes near Marseilles, to sophisticated urban settlements such as St Blaise or Entremont, the former hardly distinguishable from its Greek contemporaries. In comparison to the central and western European oppida, they are small, rarely exceeding 15-20 ha, and often much smaller. Many of the characteristics of classical towns are present on these sites - elaborate stone ramparts, rectilinear road layout, and monumental architecture, especially for temples with their stone sculpture, sometimes aping Greek prototypes with, for instance, friezes of horses’ heads, but more often with local themes such as the thes coupees or monstrous beasts. With such a centralized settlement system, naturally trade and Industry were also centred on these sites, though these are aspects which have been little studied In comparison to the art and architecture. Many sites continued in occupation up to and beyond the Roman conquest in 125-123 BC, and its urban system rapidly adapted to the Roman system.

Ostensibly the area north of Provence between the Rhine and the Atlantic presents a consistent pattern. The small open settlements (‘Industrial villages’) such as Levroux and Aulnat have long been known, like those in southern Germany. But they are now beginning to emerge along the valley of the Garenne, the Rhone-Saone corridor, and in the valley of the Aisne. Most are small isolated settlements of about 4-5 ha; Levroux is large at about 20 ha (Buchsenschiitz et al. 1992). The sites around Clermont-Ferrand in the central Massif, however, present a different picture in both the density of sites and chronology (Malacher and Collis 1992). In addition to the three or four sites at Aulnat, surface finds hint at a number of other sites, one of which, Gerzat, 5 km north of Aulnat, has been extensively excavated. Though these sites lack the nucleated population of Manching (the individual clusters of houses are separated from one another by 500 metres or so, within an area of about 10 square kilometres), they represent the same concentration of industrial activity as Manching. The site of Aulnat-La Grande Borne was extensively involved in working of iron, gold, silver and bronze, including coin manufacture, as well as bone - and glassworking, and probably textiles. Gerzat was more specialized in ironworking, but had glassworking as well. This settlement pattern was already coming into existence in the third century BC.

During La Tene Di these open settlements were abandoned over much of Gaul. Only in exceptional cases such as Roanne was there continuous development into a Roman town. Instead there was a shift to defensive situations on hilltops, peninsulae or islands, the oppida encountered by Caesar. Only rarely is there a case of straight displacement of the settlement - Levroux and Berne are examples. More normally the new defended sites are much larger than the earlier open settlements and more densely occupied, implying that several settlements combined to defend themselves, similar to the Greek process of synoecism. However, we know little of the effect of this process on the overall settlement pattern. The Aulnat sites were abandoned, whereas Gerzat seems to have survived longer, but there is little comparable data from elsewhere in France.

The revolution in settlement pattern occurred while the Nauheim brooch was in fashion for female dress - these brooches are generally the earliest types from the major oppida such as Mont Beuvray, and have actually been found in the ramparts of some oppida such as Berne. In absolute dates the change occurs around 120 BC. We have dendrochronological dates from the earliest levels at Besan§on and Yverdon (Orcel et al. 1992), and there is a similar date from one of the phases at Manching. The Roman conquest of Provence in 125-123 BC and the subsequent explosion in trade may not be unconnected.

Not all sites date back this early; indeed ramparts continued to be refurbished, and even new sites founded, as at Gergovie, as late as the Augustan period. In some areas such as Brittany and Normandy the enclosures were constructed, but no major occupation took place. In other areas such nucleatlon may not have taken place, as there are great gaps in the distribution, for instance in western France. In some cases this may be because sites are masked by modern towns. The archaeology of some sites mentioned by Caesar has yet to be found - Arras and Paris are examples - and previously unknown sites are emerging as urban archaeology develops - Chartres, for example. Nevertheless, urbanization was by no means universal even in areas where social and political development seems to be relatively advanced, and especially in northern areas such as Belgium and the Netherlands.

Another peculiarity is the ephemeral nature of some of the sites. Though some sites, like Besan§on and Reims, and presumably Paris, once founded, have remained in permanent occupation ever since, others, though densely occupied, were abandoned within a generation or so. The best documented cases of this are in the Auvergne and in the Aisne valley. In the former case, at the time of the abandonment of the open settlements such as Aulnat in the Grande Limagne, a plateau settlement of some 40 ha was founded at Corent. This seems to have been occupied for about a generation, and was replaced by a lowland site of about 35 ha on the river terrace of the Allier at Condole. With its massive earthen dump rampart of Fecamp type, this site should date to about the time of the Roman conquest, and the finds from in and around it belong to the decades just after 50 BC. It was a short-lived site, and around 30 BC a new defended site was established on the imposing spur of Gergovie. This too was abandoned after a generation, with the foundation of the Roman town of Augustonemetum on the site of modern Clermont-Ferrand.

In the Aisne valley the sequence is less complicated, and is most complete around Soissons, centre of the tribe of the Suessiones. The earliest site in this case is a poorly defended settlement of about 30 ha at Villeneuve St Germain (Audouze and Biichsenschiitz 1992). This was replaced by the hilltop oppidum of Pommiers, with Fecamp ramparts, itself replaced by the Roman town at Soissons. Villeneuve has been extensively excavated, revealing a densely occupied planned settlement. One peculiarity is that the interior was divided into four quadrants by cross-ditches (Figure 10.3). In fact, these ditches may have been the substructure for a massive roofed timber structure for which no parallels can be found. In part the division was functional - one quadrant has palisaded enclosures (Figure 10.4), either high-status dwellings or farm enclosures; another area seems to have been industrial. Limited work on Pommiers suggests that it too had this internal division. The other major excavation in the valley of the Aisne is the oppidum of Guignicourt. About 9 ha has been excavated, revealing another planned layout on a rectilinear pattern, with a wide range of different-sized houses and enclosures. With the exception of one or two buildings which lie at an angle to the main orientation, and seem to belong to a different period, the layout is unitary, and short-lived, as none of the houses was repaired or replaced.

The sites in central and southern Gaul - Toulouse, Palais d’Essalois, Corent and Mont Beuvray - are characterized by large quantities of wine amphorae. At Toulouse they are found in large quantities in the puits funeraires, pits up to 10 m deep filled with broken amphorae, and often containing other imported or prestige items such as bronze vessels and helmets. Some contain cremation burials, but burial may not be their only function. These quantities of amphorae have often been taken as evidence that they were important trade centres, but rather we are seeing here large-scale consumption of wine. Figures are not yet available, but the ratio of wine amphorae to other pottery on these sites seems to be exceptional. In the case of Mont Beuvray, the ancient Bibracte, it was an administrative centre where the ‘senate’ met, and though certainly it was a centre of industrial production, and permanently occupied (Caesar himself stayed there over winter), the amount of wine consumed is more than one would expect on an ordinary domestic site, suggesting some sort of ceremonial or social/political activity which Involved wine and food consumption.

In many cases tribal territories can be approximately defined, so oppida can be assigned to specific tribes. Some, like the BIturIges and the Helvetll, possessed