The Massif Central, even today hardly touched by motorways and high-speed trains, was in ancient times both a refuge and a sanctuary as well as an inexhaustible reservoir
Figure 29.6 General plan of the fortified enclosure at Paule, Cotes d’Armor, Brittany. Continuing excavation of this site and its environs is prompting a reassessment of the significance of the roles of enclosed sites in Brittany. Key; i - rampart; 2 - ploughed out rampart; 3 - ditch; 4 - probable course of ditch; 5 - pits and post-holes; 6 - little ditch. (After Y. Menez.)
Of open space and resources. Its position determines the ancient entry routes into Gaul, the isthmus between Narbonne and the Atlantic, and the Rhone valley, which it overlooks from the high plateaux of the Cevennes and Vivarais. Caesar understood this geography well, and carefully avoided entering the area during the first five years of the Gallic War. He had, however, eventually to resolve to confront the Arverni on their own territory but was only able to defeat them by drawing them as far as Burgundy, the home of their rival the Aedui, and ultimately to Alesia. In order to complete the conquest in 51 BC, Caesar had to overcome the resistance of the Cadurci, established around the Lot valley, who were posing a threat to the Province.
Innovations and new populations were slow to infiltrate this massif: its cultural substratum endured for centuries. Archaeological survey is difficult in the uplands: ploughed land is rare, as are the kinds of major development projects that can require rescue archaeological interventions. Moreover, the constraints imposed by the environment remain strong here: architectural changes have more to do with available raw materials than with technical developments. The information that we can
Muster remains quantitatively slight and statistically insufficient: it is not adequate to compose a lasting synthesis.
Traditionally, the Limousin region is attributed to the Lemovices, and the Auvergne to the Arvernes, while a series of small civitates (tribal areas) are scattered along the fringes of the south-west massif. Historical sources describe the Arverni as an important group who dominated Gaul politically at the time of the Celtic invasions in Italy, and whose power was only checked after their defeat at the hands of the Romans in 121 BC. The Lemovices seem to have kept aloof from the great European events until the time of the conquest itself. The First Iron Age in their area, characterized by burials under tumuli, and good-quality pottery with graphite-based decoration, displays a certain cultural unity in the western massif. But the characteristic elements of La Tene culture only penetrated this area very slowly. In the Auvergne, too, these appear somewhat tardily, during the second half of the fourth century, notably in the cemetery at Diou (Allier): about twenty burials in flat graves which yielded weapons, torques, bronze bracelets and also brooches or fibulae have been discovered. This short-lived cemetery bears witness to the links between Auvergne and the classic Celtic province, centred to the north and east.
Figure 29.7 (a) Stone sculpture from Paulc (Cotes d’Armor, Brittany) compared with (b) sculpture from the open settlement at Levroux (indre), excavated respectively by Y. Mcnez and collaborators and S. Krausz and collaborators. (Drawn by M. Dupre and S. Phillips.)
Gold coinage also links the Auvergne to historical evidence concerning the wealth of the Arverni. There is evidence of ancient mines in the region, and a recent project has shown that in Limousin the extraction of gold started no later than the Middle La Tene period (Cauuet 1991). Gold staters of Philip of Macedonia and, more particularly, imitations of them are very numerous in Puy-de-D6me and in the south of the departement of Allier. Remote from the great trade axes, the Auvergne drew Its wealth from its own soil and the endeavours of its inhabitants.
Two pieces of evidence show us that the Auvergne participated fully in the economic changes that took place in the middle La Tene period. In the so-called ‘tumulus’ at Celles (Cantal), a structure the function of which remains unclear, a complete set of tools has been found which dates roughly from the middle or the beginning of the Late La Tene period. This specialized set of tools, designed for working in horn and bone, confirms the appearance of professional craftsmen (Guillaumet 1982) at this time.
At the same time, the hamlets that were scattered over the plains of the Limagne and Forez tended to coalesce to form villages, in which craft activities of a range of types played an important role. Trade with the Mediterranean became more intensive: it is mainly manifested in the archaeological record by the presence of heavy transport amphorae. These developments were sustained by a coinage of lower value than the staters, which was aligned on the contemporary issues of southern Gaul and Spain. Though by this time the Arverni had suffered political setbacks and may have been on the defensive in some ways, they nevertheless participated fully in the economic transformations that characterize this period.
The trend towards the establishment of large enclosed sites termed oppida affected the Massif Central, but in an uneven and often distinctive way. In the east and south, timber-laced walls of murus gallicus type have been identified, along with imported amphorae, and the artefacts which are characteristic of these proto-urban sites. In Limousin, the huge site at Villejoubert (Haute Vienne) seems to have consumed many of the resources of this tribal area icivitas), many of the other oppida-like sites here seeming to represent hasty refortifications of earlier hill-forts. An upland series of small enclosed sites could be the equivalent of the aedificia of the lowlands (Ralston 1992).
On the eve of the conquest several contrasting settlement patterns are thus to be found in the Massif Central. Oppida border the valleys of the south-west, such as the Lot and the Dordogne, or overlook the plains of Limagne, Forez and Allier, these latter densely occupied by settlements in which agriculture, craft industries and trade are all represented. In Limousin one immense oppidum dominated a tissue of farms and small hill-forts. In a more traditional, highland context; mining activity there has been too recent a discovery for it to have been integrated with other archaeological data. These perspectives remain provisional, as researchers have had to content themselves with putting forward interpretations in relation to those devised for the better-known regions of Berry and Burgundy, which we shall now look at.
World History
