La Tène style/elite cultures (jan 1, 500 BC – jan 1, 1 BC)
Description:
La Tène style/elite cultures - 500- coming of Romans (c. 15 BC);
- La Tène style is the successor to Hallstatt and is usually associated with people known from historical sources as ‘the Celts’;
- La Tène style is characterized by abstract complex spiraling patterns;
- ‘Celts’ are called ‘Gauls’ in sources on ancient France;
- Celt is a difficult to pin down concept- it refers both to specific languages like Gaelic or Welsh, to art style (La Tène), to enemies of the Greeks and Romans (Celts, Gauls);
- ‘Celtic’ people often lived in semi-urbanized hillforts called ‘oppidum’ (plural: oppida);
- Gauls have rectangular enclosures for sanctuaries in which the deposited weapon booty and sometimes bodies of dead enemies;
- Gauls had a stratified centralized organisation with kings;
- Germanic tribes lived north of the Celts and had a more simple, loose social organisation;
- among Germanic tribes, human sacrifice occurred: bodies found in peat bogs are thought to be remains of these;
- Romans increasingly conquered parts of Europe; Gaul was conquered in 52 BC and they reached Germanic regions including the Netherlands, in 15 BC;
- from 48 AD onwards the border of the Roman empire run through the Netherlands – right here in Leiden – and followed the course of the river Rhine;
- the Gauls were more easily conquered by the Romans than the Germanic tribes, because the Germanic tribes lacked a centralised organisation and could resort to guerrilla-like warfare.
Added to timeline:
World Archaeology - Europe. Mesolithic to the Iron age
Date:
Images:
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
