Wells and shafts have long been argued as Celtic cult sites (Alcock 1963; Ross 1968; Ross and Feachem 1976; Wait 1983; Green 1986; 133-7). The British record has been comprehensively documented (Ross 1968: 233-83; Wait 1983: 31-82) but evidence for iron age usage is extremely poor (Webster 1991: 220-3). The present writer has argued (1991: 230-3) that wells and shafts have entered the British iron age cult site corpus as the result of an over-reliance on accounts of water worship in the medieval Irish literary sources. The appropriateness of these texts as evidence for iron age practices is highly questionable.
Stronger evidence for ritual wells and shafts comes from the continent. Shafts have been recovered, for example, inside or under the banks of southern German Viereckschanzen. Bavarian examples occur at Holzhausen (Schwarz 1962, 1975), Tomerdingen (Ziirn 1971; Ziirn and Fischer 1991), Schonfeld and Kreutzpullach (Schwarz 1962). Fellbach-Schmiden (Baden-Wiirttemberg) may also be noted in this context (Planck 1985). At Holzhausen, three shafts up to 36.5 m deep were sunk in the Iron Age. The presence of organic material, burning within shafts, and the deliberate placement of a wooden stake and a flesh-hook in two shafts led the excavator to suggest these had been used for the disposal of sacrificial remains. At Fellbach-Schmiden fragments of three deer figurines were recovered from an oak-lined shaft (by dendrochronology to 123 BC). The cult interpretation afforded such shafts remains uncertain. Brunaux (1989: 13) and Mansfeld (1989: 31-2) have recently questioned Schwarz’ interpretation of the Holzhausen shafts. At Fellbach, although the excavator suggested the enclosure itself served a cult function, the shaft was interpreted as a functional well, a role also suggested by Mansfeld (1989: 32).
Beyond southern Germany, shafts with iron age fills are rare. Gallic examples are mainly restricted to the Provincia. The fills of some Toulouse shafts date to the first century BC (e. g. the ceramic-filled shaft from Vieille-Toulouse; Fouet 1958), but none securely predates the Roman intervention. Pre-conquest fills occur elsewhere in the Provincia, as at Nimes (Gard: Bessac et al. 1984: 187-222), but these shafts seem to have had utilitarian roles. Most Gallic examples postdate the Augustan era, as at Argentomagus (Indre) where shafts date to the first century AD (Allain et al. 1987-8: 105-14) and the first - to second-century AD examples at Ghartres (Eure-et-Loir: Gallia 1978: 278-8; 1980: 319). Given this dating, it is important to recall that the use of shafts for cult purposes was common in the Graeco-Roman world (see e. g. Homer, Odyssey Xl.25-50, 97-9; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius VI.2.18) and it seems very possible that wells and shafts are essentially post-conquest cult foci.
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