Hierarchical, aristocratic societies, like those of the earliest historical Celts, began to develop in northern Europe during the Bronze Age (r. 2500 bc-750 bc), the period in which the use of metal tools and weapons first became common. The earliest use of metals in Europe dates back to as long ago as around 6000 bc. At first only those metals, such as gold and copper, were used which occur naturally in their native form (i. e. as pure metal, not as ore). The technique of extracting metal from copper ore by smelting was first used in Europe in the Balkans c. 4500 BC. The technique may have been invented quite independently in Poland, southern Spain and south-west Ireland, where copper smelting began a few centuries later. Copper and gold are both too soft to make useful tools and they were used mainly to make personal ornaments. Metal tools only began to replace stone tools in everyday use with the invention of bronze, a hard alloy made by adding small amounts of arsenic or tin to copper during the smelting process. Bronze was first made in the Middle East in the fourth millennium bc but it seems to have been invented independently in central Europe c. 2400 bc. Within a thousand years, bronze metallurgy had spread throughout Europe. This new technology must have seemed almost magical to Bronze Age Europeans, a precious gift from the gods. Enormous quantities of weapons, tools and other artefacts were given back to the gods, deposited as thank offerings in pits or bogs by a grateful people.
The adoption of bronze led to a great increase in long-distance trade within Europe. While most places have supplies of stone suitable for
Tool making, copper ore is much less widespread and cassiterite (tin ore) is quite rare. Formerly self-sufficient communities had to trade if they wished to obtain supplies of metals. The increase in trade created ideal circumstances for the easy exchange of ideas. Metals, if they were not traded as ingots, were traded as finished artefacts, so knowledge of new types of tools or new decorative styles spread quickly, promoting considerable uniformity of material culture across much of Europe. By around 1000 bc the many different cultures of early Bronze Age times had been replaced in most of central and western continental Europe by the Urnfield complex of cultures, which is named for its distinctive burial practices. Bodies were cremated and the ashes placed in pottery funerary urns for burial in huge flat grave cemeteries containing hundreds or even thousands of graves. One of the largest Urnfield cemeteries, at Kelheim in southern Germany, contained over 10,000 graves. Urnfields first appeared c. 1350 bc in Elungary, spreading from there into Poland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. The spread of the Urnfield cultures across western Europe is seen by some as evidence of Celtic migrations from their hypothetical central European homeland, but it has proved impossible to assign the Urnfield cultures to any particular ethnic group. These cultures represent an ethnically and linguistically varied group of peoples, which probably numbered early Celtic-speaking peoples among them. The European Bronze Age began to come to an end around 1200 bc with the introduction of ironworking to Greece from Anatolia, where it had been invented about 300 years earlier. Iron keeps an edge better than bronze, and it was much less costly because iron ore is very common indeed, especially bog iron ore, easily extractable rusty deposits found in bogs, which were widely exploited in ancient and medieval times. From Greece ironworking spread north through the Balkans and west along the Mediterranean trade routes to reach central Europe and Spain by around 750 bc. By 500 bc ironworking was practised throughout Europe.
While the early farming societies of the Neolithic Age had been relatively egalitarian, that is lacking in great disparities of wealth and status. Bronze Age societies developed dominant social elites. These developments are most clear in changing burial practices. Burial in the megalithic tombs of the Neolithic was communal, but in the Bronze Age burials reflected the status of the individual. Members of the social elite were interred with rich offerings of jewellery, weapons and armour, while the common folk were buried with few or no offerings: a member of the eHte might have his or her grave marked by an earth barrow, while the graves of the common folk were unmarked. These important social changes were probably a consequence of the increase in trade. Whoever could take control over the trade, production and use of metal tools and weapons could secure for themselves and their famiUes a position of considerable power and authority in their community. As societies became more hierarchical, warrior elites and
Ruling chieftains appeared. The emergence of social elites was a great stimulus to craftsmanship. Fine weapons and armour, jewellery, religious cult objects and luxury tableware made of gold, silver and bronze were produced so that the elite could display - and so reinforce - their superior wealth and status. The later Bronze Age saw increasing militarisation in western Europe, with the appearance of hillforts and defended lake settlements, and the introduction of new types of weapon, like the bronze slashing sword. Possession of one of these highly specialised and costly weapons made the owner instantly recognisable as a member of the social elite. Anthropologists describe this kind of hierarchical aristocratic society as a ‘chiefdom’ and it was typical of the Celts through much of their recorded history: the Celtic chief-doms of the Scottish Highlands survived into the eighteenth century AD. Most of the peoples described by Classical Mediterranean writers as ‘barbarians’, such as the Germans, Dacians, Huns and many others, also had this type of social structure.
World History
