Les mutations de la fin de l`âge du Fer

Les mutations de la fin de l’âge du Fer
Haselgrove 2006 : HASELGROVE (C.) dir. — Celtes et Gaulois, l’Archéologie face à l’Histoire, 4 : les
mutations de la fin de l’âge du Fer. Actes de la table ronde de Cambridge, 7-8 juillet 2005. Glux-en-Glenne :
Bibracte, 2006, 280 p., 103 ill. (Bibracte ; 12/4).
Les cinq fascicules édités sous le même n° 12 de la collection Bibracte présentent les actes de tables rondes
thématiques tenues au printemps 2005 dans le but d'effectuer la synthèse de vingt années d'acquis
scientifiques sur les Celtes protohistoriques :
-12/1 : Les Celtes dans l'histoire, l'historiographie et l'idéologie moderne
(table ronde de Leipzig, 16-17 juin 2005)
-12/2 : La Préhistoire des Celtes
(table ronde de Bologne-Monterenzio, 28-29 mai 2005)
-12/3 : Les Civilisés et les Barbares, Ve-IIe siècles avant J.-C.
(table ronde de Budapest, 17-18 juin 2005)
-12/4 : Les mutations de la fin de l'âge du Fer
(table ronde de Cambridge, 7-8 juillet 2005)
-12/5 : La romanisation et la question de l'héritage celtique
(table ronde de Lausanne, 17-18 juin 2005).
Sans constituer une somme encyclopédique, les soixante-dix contributions réunies manifestent la diversité
des études contemporaines consacrées aux Celtes protohistoriques, tributaire de la variété des traditions
académiques et des approches du sujet (linguistique, philologique ou archéologique).
Ces contributions font la part belle à l'archéologie ; le développement sans précédent de cette discipline a en
effet bouleversé au cours des deux dernières décennies notre perception des Celtes protohistoriques.
Les mutations de la fin de l'âge du Fer
Avec leurs fortifications monumentales, leur abondant mobilier et leur appartenance à un réseau
s'étendant sur une bonne partie du continent, les oppida occupent une place privilégiée dans l’analyse des
sociétés de l'âge du Fer. Les vingt dernières années ont vu des avancées importantes de notre connaissance
de ces sites. Il apparaît désormais que le terme d'oppidum recouvre une réalité archéologique multiforme.
Parallèlement, on a reconnu les limites des modèles interprétatifs qui font recours aux concepts classiques
d'urbanisme.
Dans le même temps, les recherches ont aussi montré que la documentation archéologique des
II
e
et
I
er
siècles avant J.-C. était loin de se limiter aux oppida. Fermes, sanctuaires, nécropoles, sites miniers,
agglomérations ouvertes… sont autant d'aspects d'une réalité archéologique qui était à peu près totalement
ignorée à l'aube des années 1980 et qui témoigne d'un niveau de développement socio-économique et
démographique insoupçonné jusqu'alors. Il ne faut pas sous-estimer non plus la révision drastique des
chronologies effectuée depuis lors.
Une autre avancée importante concerne l'élargissement du cadre théorique appliqué à la lecture des restes
laissés par les sociétés protohistoriques, avec notamment une attention plus grande portée aux indices
d'activité rituelle et religieuse.
Dans ce contexte, la table ronde de Cambridge s'est attachée à replacer les oppida dans une perspective
large, tant du point de vue spatial que temporel, afin de tenter de discerner les particularités de la
documentation archéologique des
II
e
et
I
er
siècles avant J.-C. qui peuvent être le reflet de spécificités des
sociétés de l'Europe tempérée.
Avant propos du responsable de la table ronde
With their monumental fortifications, abundant material culture and evident inter-connections with one
another, European oppida such as Bibracte, Manching and Stradonice have been central to our interpretation
of Late La Tène societies ever since the nineteenth century when the first systematic archaeological
excavations began. The last twenty years or so has seen particularly rapid advances in our knowledge of the
nature and organisation of these sites as a quick glance at two syntheses written at opposite ends of the
period shows (Collis 1984; Fichtl 2000 [2005]). It is easily forgotten that as recently as the 1980s – apart
from Manching and a few other sites – we knew little or nothing about the internal layout and character of
occupation of most European oppida in their earlier, Iron Age phases. Nowadays, it is apparent that the
category brings together some quite different types of sites, whose diversity in many respects outweighs the
various unifying features. Faced with this situation, archaeologists have begun to realise that invoking present
day concepts of urbanism or even comparing oppida with classical cities may hinder our efforts to explain
their emergence through causing us to lose sight of their distinctive attributes, as well as running a risk of
endowing them with properties out of place in Iron Age Europe.
That wherever such sites occur, they had a significant role in Late La Tène societies is not in doubt, but it
is equally clear that this varied geographically and chronologically and that the differences separating oppida
from other types of site, regions or time periods are far less clear-cut than we once supposed. Much of this
fresh understanding derives from the initiation in the 1980s of long-term research projects like those at
Bibracte and the Titelberg, and from rescue excavations necessitated by modern development both in the
cities, as at Besançon, and in the countryside, as in the Aisne Valley. Technical advances in archaeology have
contributed too, among them the development of an essentially independent chronology for the Later Iron
Age; our enhanced ability to recognise timber buildings and structures which leave limited physical traces; the
now routine quantitative analysis of animal and plant remains and other finds; or the use of geophysical
survey to trace overall site plans.
If these developments have caused our knowledge of oppida to progress significantly in the last twenty
years, their impact on our understanding of the cultural and material landscapes occupied by these sites has
been nothing short of revolutionary. Various categories of sites such as religious sanctuaries, rural
agglomerations and workshop complexes – about which we knew very little twenty years ago, but which
evidently became widespread in the centuries preceding the oppida – have been researched extensively. As a
result of the vast increase in developer-funded archaeology, the available data have reached a ‘critical mass’
that now make it possible to answer questions that were previously difficult, such as the precise nature and
composition of the settlement pattern in different regions. As a result, we now appreciate how very different
the agricultural and productive capacity and demography of Late Iron Age societies was from previous
centuries (cf. Buchsenschutz 2004). It has also become apparent that the social and economic transformations
of the last few centuries BC impacted on all aspects of Iron Age societies and on Iron Age groups throughout
Europe, not just those within the oppidum-dominated zone.
Another significant advance since the 1980s has been the application of a wider range of theoretical
perspectives to later prehistoric societies. This has directed attention to hitherto unexplored facets of Iron
Age communities, such as their propensity for ritual deposition and sacrifice in a domestic context, or their
use of enclosure to symbolise and reproduce group identities and individual status. It is apparent from the
quite different material remains they left behind that the nature of Later Iron Age societies varied substantially
across Europe, not just between regions which had oppida and others like the north European plain which did
not, but also within the oppidum-dominated zone. Consequently, in trying to understand the social processes
at work, we need to adopt a more ‘context-specific’ approach to interpreting the archaeology of the Later Iron
Age, whilst not losing sight of the need to explain wider patterns such as the new-found power and desire of
Late La Tène communities over such a large part of Europe to construct monumental fortifications around
particular sites (Woolf 1993). As Woolf notes, some aspects of these developments may in fact be peculiar to
temperate Europe, reflecting distinctive characteristics of the landmass and its inhabitants, rendering them of
interest to anthropologists, historians and everyone else involved in studying the evolution of human
societies.
Given this background, the Cambridge Round Table sought to take a broad-based approach to the
transformations of the Later Iron Age by extending the field of enquiry beyond the oppidum-dominated zone
and taking a generous geographical and chronological perspective, whilst carefully analysing the cultural and
landscape contexts in which the key changes occurred. Among the principal questions that the participants
set out to examine were the following:
– What are the key social, political and economic processes seen across Europe in the 2nd and 1st centuries
BC and what caused them? To what extent can their origins be traced to La Tène B-C1, or even earlier?
– What did specific processes or innovations such as the adoption of coinage, agricultural intensification,
demographic growth and technological changes contribute to other developments?
– How were agriculture, craft production and exchange embedded in regional settlement patterns and social
organisation? How does this change over the period?
– Were there changes in the way that material culture and symbolic practices were used to create and sustain
group identities and/or individual statuses in the Late Iron Age? What does the process of ethnogenesis in
the 1st century BC in certain parts of Europe owe to Roman involvement?
– What obvious similarities and differences can we see between the social and political formations within the
oppidum-dominated zone, and those of the Mediterranean coastlands and the rest of Europe?
– To what extent can we isolate regionally and contextually specific cultural practices within Late La Tène
Europe? Do some of these form wider patterns?
– Has the genesis of the Roman state anything in common with Late Iron Age changes in temperate Europe?
Can this contribute to our understanding of interaction between Romans and Gauls?
– To what degree were oppida symptomatic of underlying changes in Late Iron Age society, such as the
desire of emergent communities to monumentalise focal sites, or increased competition between groups or
individuals?
– Were the political, ceremonial and religious activities performed in oppida replicated in other contexts and
types of arena such as domestic farmsteads?
– Did the creation of oppida lead to new and/or more regular forms of cultural interaction, and did this
generate further social changes?
This list does not pretend in any way to be exhaustive. Inevitably there are many other potentially
relevant topics, which were not explored at the Round Table due to lack of time, or at least not in the depth
they merited.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all those who presented papers at the meeting; John Collis, Martin
Millett and Ian Ralston, who chaired the sessions and led the discussion; Laura Cripps, Pam Lowther and
colleagues at the Centre Archéologique Européen, especially Joelle Cunnac and Vincent Guichard, for their
help with the organisation; the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Fitzwilliam College,
Cambridge for providing the ideal venue; and not least everyone who participated in the Round Table and
contributed to the lively debates that ensued.
Leicester, avril 2006
Colin HASELGROVE
Colin HASELGROVE is Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History,
University of Leicester. His research interests include the adoption of coinage in Iron Age Europe and the
nature of later Iron Age communities and their relations with the expanding Roman world, on which he has
published extensively. He has directed excavations at the Stanwick oppidum (North Yorkshire, GB) and on
numerous rural settlements in Scotland, England and France. In 2000, he began a survey to investigate the
Iron Age and Gallo-Roman settlement pattern in the Arroux valley below Bibracte.