The clearest evidence for production in this period is at the salt mines at Hallstatt and at the Diirrnberg. In both places, the evidence indicates large-scale, specialized mining. For both sites, the question of leadership and command is difficult to answer. Although there are variations in the wealth of individual graves, in neither cemetery are there any exceptionally richly outfitted burials, as might befit a potentate who gave orders and profited from the enterprise. The skeletal evidence at the Diirrnberg shows that the people buried in well-equipped graves were the ones who did the physical labour. This physical anthropological evidence supports Pauli’s (1978) use of the analogy of medieval mining communities in central Europe, where the miners were free workers who contracted out their labour to landowners in exchange for a share of the profits. Maier (1974: 338) interprets the evidence from the two saltmining sites to indicate the existence of family enterprises operating side by side at the two locations.
From this period, a number of centres have been identified that represent the first towns north of the Alps. They are characterized by more abundant habitation remains, indicating larger populations, than other settlements, and by evidence of substantial manufacturing and trade activity in a variety of materials. Well-documented examples include Mont Lassois (Joffroy i960) and Bragny (Feugere and Guillot 1986) in France, Chatillon-sur-Glane in Switzerland (Schwab 1975), and the Heuneburg in south-west Germany (Kimmig 1983). These sites yield evidence for on-site iron-smithing and bronze-casting, bone and antler carving, lignite and jet cutting, and working of exotic substances such as amber and coral. Mansfeld’s (1973) study of fibulae and Dammer’s (1978) research on painted pottery suggest that workshops at these centres produced goods for the surrounding countryside (Wells 1987). The richly outfitted burials associated with the centres have been interpreted as reflecting a marked social hierarchy. Links between craft production and rich graves (special craft products, including bronze vessels and gold ornaments, occur in the graves) make it likely that craftworkers at the centres were under the control of the local elite group. In regie’ is where there were no such centres, ironworking and bronze-casting were carrie i out by many small communities, as for example at Niedererlbach in Bavaria (Ko' h and Kohnke 1988).
For extractive industries in iron, Driehaus (1965) has called attention to the association between ore ceposits and rich Early La Tene (500-400 BC) burials in the western Middle Rhineland, and has suggested that the wealth in southern imports, local fine crafts products and gold ornaments in these graves derived from exploitation of the iron resources and from trade in the metal. Pauli (1974) proposed a similar model of early La Tene wealth based on exploitation of resources in Bohemia, drawing on potentially analogous evidence from the medieval period.
World History
