Lasting from 500BC until the roman conquest of Gaul, Germany and Britain, La Tene culture represented the pinnacle of Celtic civilisation. Named after a site discovered in the shallows of a lake in Switzerland, it is epitomised by its highly stylized form of art which coincided with the rise of Celtic culture as a European power.
The Discovery of La Tene
In 1858, the shoreline of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland dropped to an unusually low level, revealing a number of objects that revolutionised the view of Celtic culture. Named ‘La Tene’ after the shallows they were discovered in, the finds consisted of the remains of a wooden iron age bridge or jetty and 116 swords, 270 spears, wooden wheels, shields, axes as well as domestic tools. The quality and design of the finds, thought to be part of a hoard or sacrificial offering showed intricate workmanship and design that was a development on similar artefacts of the Halstatt period.
Features of La Tene.
Certain types of find define the La Tene period. They include:
- Celtic art. Jewellery and decorated weapons in this period involved increasingly elaborate manufacturing processes as well as displaying an intricacy and creativity not present during the Halstatt period. Weapon blades were of iron but their hilts were fashioned separately as bronze in a highly individual and stylized way. Anthropomorphic figures displaying torcs and Celtic hairstyles acted as grips. Patterns decorating objects as diverse as pottery, vessels, mirrors and broaches displayed complex knot work motifs and the clever use of plant and animal images.
- The change to chariot burials. In the Halstatt period, bodies were interred in four wheeled wagons. La Tene burials involved two wheeled chariots instead. Wagons were the vehicles of a farming based community. The switch to chariots indicated an increasingly militaristic society whose bedrock may still have been farming but whose elite defined themselves by their prowess in battle. The chariots themselves, originally an idea imported from the east, show Celtic wheel smiths, carpenters and blacksmiths working together to come up with a uniquely Celtic design.
La Tene and Celtic Society
These artistic and technological developments were the marks of a sophisticated cultural movement. They point to the rise of the Celtic tribes as European powers. Historical sources record this as the period when Celtic tribes were becoming increasingly warlike, even challenging the burgeoning roman empire by invading and attacking areas of Italy.
At the same time, although the Celts remained as fragmented tribes, they were bound by social and religious customs. Their society was by no means undeveloped. As far as Britain, there are examples of tribal chieftains minting their own coins. The Celts of the La Tene period also practised the organised manufacturing of goods, as indicated by the evidence of a pottery factories in Germany.
La Tene was the period that firmly fixed the legendary figure of the creative Celtic warrior firmly in the imagination.
Sources
Frank Delaney ‘The Celts’ (1993) HarperCollins: London
The Illustrated Dictionary of Archaeology
Lloyd Laing ‘Celtic Britain’ (1984) Paladin: Granada publishing
