Bogucki P., Crabtree P. Ancient Europe 8000 B.C.-A.D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. Volume 2
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that they would continue on their eastward journey
back to Switzerland.
The path of migration appears to have first tra-
versed the Alps along the western side of the Italian
Peninsula but was soon expanded to include routes
south from Bohemia. A delegation of Galatian Celts
met Alexander the Great on the banks of the Dan-
ube during his campaign in the Balkans in 335
B.C.
The source is Ptolemy I, later the ruler of Egypt,
who was present on the occasion. Celtic incursion
into Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece in about 280
B.C. was the culmination of frequent movements of
war parties that had begun nearly a century earlier.
Delphi was attacked around 279
B.C. by Brennos,
who led his warriors to the temple of the Oracle,
which they burned. There is no evidence for Celtic
resettlement in Greece, and artifacts associated with
the assault on Delphi are few.
Classical sources settled upon various accounts
to explain why Celts left their homeland and jour-
neyed south through Alpine passes to establish
communities in Italy and Asia Minor. A report by
Livy states, “There is a tradition that it was the lure
of Italian fruits and especially of wine, a pleasure
then new to them, that drew the Gauls to cross the
Alps and settle in regions previously cultivated by
the Etruscans.” The Greek scholar Dionysius of
Halicarnassus elaborates on this sequence of events,
saying that the Gauls were enticed to Italy with
wine, olive oil, and figs and were told that the place
was occupied by men who fought like women and
would offer no real resistance. According to these
two authors, the quality of life available on the Ital-
ian Peninsula attracted Celtic immigrants. In anoth-
er version, the Greek geographer Strabo reports
that tribes joined forces in pursuit of plunder. A fur-
ther account says that population stress prompted
consultation with the gods who directed one broth-
er to take his followers to the Hercynian uplands in
southern Germany while the other was told to take
the more pleasant road into Italy. Scholarly analysis
suggests that population growth was a contributing
factor, along with a deteriorating climatic phase.
These conditions, combined with the disruptions in
the traffic of Mediterranean imports that followed
the establishment of Roman colonies competing
with the Greek trading post at Massalia, may indeed
have been sufficient cause.
It is probable that the migration that began in
the Champagne region was motivated by a desire to
acquire luxury goods and wine and that it was car-
ried out by young adult males of the warrior aristoc-
racy, as the archaeological evidence indicates. How-
ever, movements such as that of the Helvetii
included men, women, and children, and they were
most likely motivated by other factors that included
hardship.
Migration contributed greatly to restructuring
Celtic society. Large numbers of Celts were intro-
duced to different lifestyles in the various Mediter-
ranean civilizations. When they returned to their
homes north of the Alps (and many of them did)
they brought back coinage and an appreciation of
its use. They also transported ideas, technologies,
and objects that they acquired, along with contacts
that enabled them to enter into new trade relation-
ships. Further, the process of migration itself had
temporarily reorganized tribal units. During migra-
tion, loose coalitions of otherwise distinct groups
formed under the leadership of single individuals.
Post-migration Celtic Europe during the proto-
urban oppida phase (150–50
B.C.) reflects these eco-
nomic and social transformations.
See also Celts (vol. 2, part 6); La Tène (vol. 2, part 6); La
Tène Art (vol. 2, part 6).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arnold, Bettina, and D. Blair Gibson, eds. Celtic Chiefdom,
Celtic State: The Evolution of Complex Social Systems in
Prehistoric Europe. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1995.
Cunliffe, Barry. Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians: Spheres of
Interaction. New York: Methuen, 1988.
Kristiansen, Kristian. Europe before History. Cambridge,
U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Livy. The Early History of Rome: Books I–V of the History of
Rome from Its Foundation. Translated by Aubrey de
Selincourt. Baltimore, Md.: Penguin, 1965.
Moscati, Sabatino, et al., eds. The Celts. New York: Rizzoli,
1991.
Wells, Peter S. The Barbarians Speak. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1999.
S
USAN MALIN-BOYCE
6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400
150
ANCIENT EUROPE
THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400
GERMANS
■
The question of the identity of the peoples who
were first called Germans is immensely complex.
Three main approaches to the subject are historical,
archaeological, and linguistic.
HISTORICAL
The earliest description of peoples called Germans
is in Julius Caesar’s commentary about his military
campaigns in Gaul between 58 and 51
B.C. Caesar’s
remarks formed the basis for later Roman use of the
name and thus for subsequent medieval and mod-
ern applications. Any discussion of the identity of
the early Germans must begin with Caesar. The
Greek writer Posidonius (135–51
B.C.) may have
mentioned peoples he called Germans, but his
works do not survive.
Two assertions by Caesar are of particular im-
portance. One is that the peoples east of the Rhine
were Germans, whereas those west of the river were
Gauls (whom ancient Greek writers called Celts).
The other is that the Germans had a less complex
society than did the Gauls. Unlike the Gauls, the
Germans had no towns, little agriculture, and less-
developed religious rituals, and they spent much of
their time hunting and fighting. From Caesar on-
ward, Roman writers called the peoples east of the
Rhine and north of the Upper Danube Germans. It
is not known what these groups called themselves.
It is very unlikely that they thought of themselves
as any kind of single people, at least before many of
them united to face the threat of Roman conquest.
In his work known as the Germania, published
in
A.D. 98, the Roman historian Tacitus described
in greater detail the peoples whom Caesar had
called Germans. From the second half of the six-
teenth century, when the manuscript of his writing
was rediscovered and translated, the account of Tac-
itus formed the basis for many studies of the early
Germans. Much of his description was applied even
to groups who lived many centuries after the peo-
ples he called Germans. Well into modern times,
scholars interpreted his work as if it were an ethno-
graphic account of peoples in northern Europe be-
yond the Roman frontier.
Approaches to the writings of Caesar and Taci-
tus have become more critical. Many historians be-
lieve that Caesar’s assertions that the peoples east of
the Rhine were Germans was politically motivated,
to portray the Rhine as a border between Gauls and
Germans and thus a cultural frontier at the eastern
edge of peoples whom he was fighting to conquer.
Much of Caesar’s description of the Germans as a
simpler people than the Gauls may have been based
on long-held Roman ideas about the geography and
the peoples of northern Europe. Caesar had little di-
rect contact with groups east of the Rhine, and his
remarks about them were made in the context of his
primary concern, which was the conquest of Gaul.
A century of critical study of Tacitus has led to
the conclusion that his Germania should be ap-
proached primarily as a literary work, rather than an
ethnographic one. Many believe that his descrip-
tions of the Germans tell more about Roman atti-
tudes and values than about the peoples of northern
Europe. Whereas Roman writers, following Caesar
and Tacitus, regarded Germans and Gauls as dis-
ANCIENT EUROPE
151
tinct peoples, Greek authors, such as Strabo and
Cassius Dio, considered them part of the larger
group of peoples whom they called Celts. Later
Roman and medieval writers built upon the tradi-
tions of their predecessors, classifying many peoples
identified in later centuries—such as Burgundians,
Franks, Goths, and Langobards—as Germans.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
The archaeological evidence shows a much more
complex situation than Caesar and Tacitus describe.
When Caesar was writing, between 58 and 51
B.C.,
the peoples east of the upper and middle Rhine were
very much like those west of the Rhine against
whom Caesar was fighting. Large fortified towns
known as oppida dominated the landscape. As at the
oppida in Gaul, the archaeology shows complex
economic and political organization, with mass pro-
duction of pottery and iron tools, minting of coins,
and long-distance trade with much of Europe, in-
cluding Roman Italy. East of the lower Rhine, how-
ever, the archaeology indicates a different kind of
society, without the large oppida and with smaller-
scale manufacturing and commerce. In this region
Caesar’s assertion about lack of towns corresponds
to the archaeological evidence, but his statements
about undeveloped agriculture and the major role
of hunting are proved wrong by the archaeology.
Intensive farming and livestock husbandry had been
practiced in the region for some four thousand years
before Caesar’s time.
The style of material culture, especially metal
ornaments and pottery, in much of the region east
of the lower Rhine is known as Jastorf, and it con-
trasts with the La Tène style characteristic to the
south and west. Earlier archaeologists have linked
La Tène style with Celts (Gauls) and Jastorf style
with Germans, but studies show that such direct
connections between styles and peoples named by
Roman and Greek writers are unwarranted.
Throughout the Roman period (50
B.C. to A.D.
450), the archaeology shows regular interactions—
some peaceful, some violent—between the Roman
provinces west of the Rhine and the unconquered
lands to the east. Many graves east of the Rhine con-
tain fine products of Roman manufacturing, such as
pottery, bronze vessels, ornaments, and even weap-
ons. Such settlements as Feddersen Wierde in
Lower Saxony show that trade with the Roman
world brought both wealth and social change to
communities in these regions.
LINGUISTIC
The category “Germanic” as it applies to language
is difficult to investigate before the time of the
Roman conquests because the Iron Age peoples did
not leave writings. Roman and Greek observers did
not use language as a criterion in distinguishing the
peoples of northern Europe, probably because they
did not know enough about the native languages.
When runes were developed in northern parts of the
continent (by people familiar with Latin), probably
in the first or second century
A.D., they indicate the
presence of a well-developed language that linguists
classify as Germanic.
In the Rhineland, where many inscriptions sur-
vive from after the Roman conquest, some names
can be linked with Germanic and others with Celtic
languages. Certain names even combine elements of
the two linguistic traditions. Probably in much of
temperate Europe at the time of Caesar and Tacitus,
many people spoke languages that could not be
classified easily as either Germanic or Celtic today
but that included elements associated with both of
those categories.
See also Oppida (vol. 2, part 6); Manching (vol. 2, part
6); Gergovia (vol. 2, part 6); Kelheim (vol. 2, part
6); Langobards (vol. 2, part 7).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bazelmans, Jos. “Conceptualising Early Germanic Political
Structure.” In Images of the Past: Studies on Ancient So-
cieties in Northwestern Europe. Edited by N. Roymans
and F. Theuws, pp. 91–129. Amsterdam: University of
Amsterdam, 1991.
Beck, Heinrich, ed. Germanenprobleme in heutiger Sicht.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1999.
Beck, Heinrich, Heiko Steuer, and Dieter Timpe, eds. Ger-
manen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde. Ber-
lin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998.
Lund, Allan A. Die ersten Germanen: Ethnizität und Ethno-
genese. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1998.
Pohl, Walter. Die Germanen. Munich: R. Oldenbourg,
2000.
Todd, Malcolm. The Early Germans. Oxford: Blackwell,
1992.
6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400
152
ANCIENT EUROPE
Wells, Peter S. Beyond Celts, Germans, and Scythians: Ar-
chaeology and Identity in Iron Age Europe. London:
Duckworth, 2001.
P
ETER S. WELLS
GERMANS
ANCIENT EUROPE
153
THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400
OPPIDA
■
FOLLOWED BY FEATURE ESSAY ON:
Manching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
■
Oppidum is the Latin word for a defended site,
often with urban characteristics, and so, by exten-
sion, simply a “town.” The modern archaeological
usage is based on Julius Caesar’s De bello Gallico, in
which he terms the native urban settlements, such
as Genava (Geneva), Vesontio (Besançon), Lutetia
(Paris), Bibracte (Mont Beuvray), and Gergovia
(Gergovie), oppida, although he occasionally calls
them urbs (city). German and British nomenclature
thus uses this word for archaeological sites similar to
these historical towns—defended Late Iron Age
sites of the second to first centuries
B.C. of at least
25–30 hectares, which are found from the Hun-
garian plain to western France as well as in central
Spain. Caesar and other Latin authors also use
the term to describe hillforts and small defended
urban sites of 5–10 hectares; French nomenclature
follows this usage for the towns of southern France,
such as Entremont and Ensérune, and the sixth-
century Hallstatt hillforts, such as Mont Lassois
and the Heuneburg. In Britain the term is used
mainly for very large lowland settlements of the first
centuries
B.C. and A.D., such as Camulodunum
(Colchester), which can be as large as 2,000 hect-
ares, defined by linear dikes. In this discussion the
British and German nomenclature is used. This
essay will discuss oppida in Gaul, central Europe,
and Britain.
OPPIDA IN GAUL AND
CENTRAL EUROPE
Because of their large size and no doubt large popu-
lations, the oppida must belong to a very different
sort of political entity from that of the Mediterra-
nean city-states, or what might be termed tribal
states. They bear the name of a tribe rather than of
a major town (e.g., the Aedui and the Arverni, com-
pared with the Romans and Athenians). Where the
territorial size of the state is known, they tend to be
much larger than the city-states. Mont Beuvray near
Autun in Burgundy is a good type site. First, Caesar
names it as the ancient Bibracte, chief town of the
Aedui, who were legal allies of the Romans from at
least the second century
B.C. Caesar, who spent the
winter of 52–51
B.C. in the town writing De bello
Gallico, tells a little about the state’s oligarchic con-
stitution. He mentions the annual election of the
chief magistrate (the vergobret), the existence of an
assembly (senatus), and the sources of the state’s in-
come (e.g., the annual auctioning of the right to
collect tolls from traders).
Mont Beuvray lies in a good defensive position
on a hilltop that dominates the Morvan mountain
range, and it is visible from a considerable distance
in all directions. Although the immediate area is ag-
riculturally poor, there are raw resources, such as
iron ore, and the oppidum controlled one of the
154
ANCIENT EUROPE
Some of the principal oppida in Europe. ADAPTED FROM WELLS 1999.
major routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlan-
tic, from the valley of the Saône into the Paris Basin
via the River Yonne. Dendrochronological evidence
shows that the oppidum was founded about 120
B.C.
and initially was surrounded by a rampart low on the
hill, enclosing some 200 hectares. This was a murus
Gallicus, as described by Caesar, a wall revetted
front and back by stone walls and with an internal
timber lacing joined with iron spikes where the
balks cross. In a murus Gallicus the space between
the walls is filled with earth and stones, and there is
an earthen ramp behind and a ditch (or, in the case
of Mont Beuvray, a terrace) in front. Somewhat
later the site was reduced in size to 135 hectares
with a new murus Gallicus rampart, which was re-
paired regularly, and, finally, in the later first century
B.C. by a Fécamp rampart—a massive bank of earth
with a sloping glacis front (named by Mortimer
Wheeler who dug the oppidum overlooking the
modern-day town of Fécamp). The reason for this
series of alterations may have been to make the ram-
parts more visible from a distance. Certainly, de-
fense is not the only purpose of the “defenses”—the
main gate, the Porte de Rebout, is much wider than
would be needed for defense, and there is no elabo-
rate gatehouse such as those known from many
other sites.
The site was a major center for consumption—
the annual influx of wine amphorae from western
Italy must be numbered in the thousands, but the
pre-conquest deposits at Mont Beuvray are poorly
known, as they are overlain by masonry buildings of
the Augustan period. The site saw a massive invest-
ment in public and private buildings in the two gen-
erations following the conquest, before the pop-
ulation moved to a less-exposed site 20 kilo-
meters away at Augustodunum (Autun) c. 10
B.C.
to
A.D. 10.
Several major excavations of oppida reveal their
internal organization and the range of buildings—
Villeneuve–St. Germain near Soissons and Condé-
sur-Suippe/Variscourt in France; Staré Hradisko,
Hrazany, and Závist in the Czech Republic; and
Manching on the Danube in Germany. All of them
have produced large palisaded enclosures, which
have the appearance of farmsteads, usually with a
large timber house and ancillary barns, stables, gra-
naries, workshops, and wells. The largest enclosures
are up to 4,000 square meters, but more typically
they are about 1,000 to 2,000 square meters. They
seem to be elite residences, the equivalent of the
courtyard house in the Mediterranean world. They
also commonly have evidence of industrial activities,
OPPIDA
ANCIENT EUROPE
155
such as bronze casting, ironsmithing, and coin man-
ufacture.
The lower classes lived in smaller timber build-
ings, typically with a single room, constructed on ar-
tificial terraces on hill slopes, or, in the case of Mont
Beuvray and Manching, lined along the main thor-
oughfares. Many people of this class were engaged
in manufacturing. Some were bronzesmiths, mak-
ing such mass-produced items as safety-pin brooch-
es and belt fittings. Others were ironworkers, pro-
ducing such weapons as swords, iron scabbards,
spears, and shield bosses; a wide range of tools for
carpentry (drills, hammers, chisels, knives, axes); ag-
ricultural equipment (plowshares, sickles, scythes,
pruning hooks); house fittings (latch lifters, keys,
locks, cauldron hangers), or vehicle fittings for char-
iots and wagons. Glass was worked to produce mul-
ticolored beads, pendants, and bracelets or red glass
as an overlay on decorative studs. Wool was spun
and woven into textiles, and leather was worked, al-
though little survives of the products themselves. A
great range of pottery was made, from basic cooking
pots and eating vessels to elaborate painted vessels
with geometric and zoomorphic (based on animal
forms) decorations. Individual pots, such as special-
ist cooking pots made of clay containing graphite,
could be traded over several hundred kilometers.
Thus, oppida were important centers of manufac-
ture, linked together by extensive trade networks
that saw trade not only in finished goods but also
in raw materials, such as metals, salt (Hallstatt, Bad
Nauheim), amber, or shale for bracelets and vessels.
In some cases, such as Kelheim in Germany and
Titelberg in Luxembourg, the oppidum encloses or
sits on the raw material (in both these cases, iron
ores).
Oppida were deliberate foundations, formed at
a specific moment in time when the decision was
made to found a town and for the population to
move in. It implies preexisting knowledge of what
a town is like and the necessary economic, social,
and political superstructure to support it. Manching
is a unique example of a settlement that gradually
increased in size until it achieved urban proportions
and was given defenses. Lezoux in central France
presents the more normal sequence: an open settle-
ment of about 8 hectares in the plain, which was
abandoned at the end of the second century
B.C. for
a defended oppidum on a nearby hill. This site, in
turn, was abandoned in the late first century
B.C. for
a Roman town at the foot of the hill.
There are considerable regional variations,
however. Sometimes a series of oppida replace one
another—Villeneuve–St. Germain and Pommiers at
Soissons or Corent, Gondole, and Gergovie at Cler-
mont-Ferrand. In many cases, no preceding major
settlement is known, and the urban site may repre-
sent some sort of synoicism, or joining together into
one community, of numerous small settlements. At
Roanne and Feurs the early open settlements de-
creased in size when the nearby oppida of Jœvres,
Crêt-Châtelard, and Palais d’Essalois were estab-
lished, but neither site was abandoned and, unlike
the local oppida, developed into flourishing Roman
towns. In some areas, such as Clermont-Ferrand,
virtually all the preceding settlements disappeared.
In others, such as Champagne, there were many
small farms and hamlets in the countryside; indeed,
the distribution of rich burials suggests that in
northern France this was where many of the elite re-
sided. In still other areas, especially in southeastern
France, oppida are rare or unknown, and open set-
tlements, such as Saumeray, in the territory of the
Carnutes could continue unaffected by the founda-
tion of oppida not far away. Oppida also could be
founded but never attract any permanent occupa-
tion.
In Gaul the main period for the foundation of
the oppida (on the evidence of dendrochronology)
is about 120
B.C. This was around the time of the
Roman takeover of southern France (125–123
B.C.)
and the defeat in 123
B.C. of the Arverni, who, ac-
cording to the Greek ethnographer Posidonius, had
controlled an area from the Atlantic to the Rhine.
In central Europe (e.g., the Czech Republic) such
sites as Hrazany, Závist, and Staré Hradisko go back
a couple of generations earlier, to the early second
century
B.C., but there is no historical context for
their foundation.
The oppida played a major role in the events of
Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, of which the sieges of
Avaricum (Bourges), Gergovia, Alesia (Alise–Ste.
Reine), and Uxellodunum (Puy-d’Issolud) are the
most spectacular. In contrast, when the Romans
reached the Danube in 15–14
B.C. many sites, such
as Manching, seem to have been abandoned. The
gates of Hrazany and Závist, outside the area con-
quered by the Romans, were hastily blocked just be-
6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400
156
ANCIENT EUROPE
fore they were burned down. This event traditional-
ly has been associated with the rise of the Germanic
chieftain Maroboduus and the Marcomanni c. 10
B.C., but the archaeological dating now suggests an
earlier date for their destruction. In contrast, many
of the sites in Gaul, even in areas hostile to Rome,
continued in occupation for at least a couple of gen-
erations (Gergovie, Mont Beuvray), if not through-
out the Roman period (Alise–Ste. Reine). Indeed,
many sites can claim continuity of occupation to the
present day, among them Besançon (Vesontio),
Reims (Durocortorum), Paris, Chartres (Au-
tricum), and Orléans (Aurelianum Cenabum).
The sites in central Spain are less well known
and studied; they contrast with the generally smaller
Iberian towns of the east and south and the hillforts
of the western and northern Iberian Peninsula.
Their histories are longer than those of temperate
Europe, with sites such as Las Cogotas and La Mesa
de Miranda (Ávila) starting as early as the fifth cen-
tury
B.C. A small number of sites figure in the Car-
thaginian and Roman conflicts: Salamanca (Sala-
mantica) was captured by the Carthaginian general
Hannibal in 220
B.C., and Numantia near Soria was
the scene of a siege by the Roman general Scipio Af-
ricanus in 133
B.C. Typically, these sites consist of
two or three defended enclosures with elaborate en-
trances and large enclosure areas (e.g., La Mesa de
Miranda, at 30 hectares; Las Cogotas, at 14.5 hect-
ares; and Ulaca, at 80 hectares). The latter site con-
tains many small stone and double houses, usually
with a single room but occasionally with three or
four rooms, but there are also ceremonial and reli-
gious structures. The associated cemeteries contain
some rich burials with weapons and fine bronze jew-
elry, but the very rich aristocratic burials found in
northern Gaul generally are absent, suggesting a less
hierarchical society.
OPPIDA IN BRITAIN
The oppida of Britain date to the late first century
B.C. and early first century A.D. and are confined to
the south and east of the country. Generally, they
are in low-lying areas enclosing valleys or low ridges
between rivers, suggesting that their role was not
primarily defensive. In fact, their huge size (300 to
2,000 hectares or more) would have been impossi-
ble to man. The linear earthworks, or dikes, even
avoid commanding strategic positions, and al-
though they are often massive, with sometimes dou-
ble or triple lines of ramparts, their function seems
rather to impress. They may mark royal properties,
and only parts of them were occupied. The richest
Late Iron Age burials are associated with them—
Lexden at Colchester and Folly Lane at St. Albans.
Historical sources and coinage allow researchers to
identify up to three generations of dynastic kings,
whose names appear on the coins along with the
names of the cities, Camulodunum (Colchester),
Verulamium (St. Albans), and Calleva Atrebatum
(Silchester). Classical sources call Colchester the
“capital” of Cunobelin (Cunobelinus, or Cymbe-
line), “king of the Britons.” All the sites produce ev-
idence of extensive trade with the Roman world,
with wine and fish paste (garum) from Italy and
Spain and fine pottery from Gaul and northern
Italy. Several developed into major Roman towns.
See also Germans (vol. 2, part 6); Manching (vol. 2, part
6); Hillforts (vol. 2, part 6); Gergovia (vol. 2, part
6); Kelheim (vol. 2, part 6); The Heuneburg (vol. 2,
part 6); Agriculture (vol. 2, part 7).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collis, John R. Oppida: Earliest Towns North of the Alps.
Sheffield, U.K.: University of Sheffield, 1984.
Cunliffe, Barry W. Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Ac-
count of England, Scotland, and Wales from the Seventh
Century
BC until the Roman Conquest. 3d ed. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1991.
Cunliffe, Barry W., and Simon Keay. Social Complexity and
the Development of Towns in Iberia, from the Copper Age
to the Second Century
AD. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995.
Fichtl, S. La ville celtique: Les oppida de 150 av. J.-C. à 15
ap. J.-C. Paris: Éditions Errance, 2000.
Hodges, Richard. Dark Age Economics: The Origins of Towns
and Trade
A.D. 600–1000. 2d ed. London: Duckworth,
1989.
Guichard, Vincent, and Franck Perrin, eds. L’aristocratie
celte à la fin de l’Âge du Fer. Bibracte 4. Glux-en-
Glenne, France: Centre archéologique européenne du
Mont Beuvray, 2001.
Guichard, Vincent, S. Sievers, and O. H. Urban, eds. Les
processus d’urbanisation à l’âge du Fer: Eisenzeitliche
Urbanisationsprozesse. Bibracte 5. Glux-en-Glenne,
France: Centre archéologique européenne du Mont
Beuvray, 2000.
Wells, Peter S. The Barbarians Speak. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1999.
J
OHN COLLIS
OPPIDA
ANCIENT EUROPE
157
■
MANCHING
Manching is a La Tène period oppidum site in Ba-
varia, Germany, dated from about 250 to 80
B.C.,
after which time it gradually was abandoned. It is
one of a handful of sites of its type that have been
investigated systematically, although because of its
enormity, only about 3 percent of the settlement
has been excavated. It has yielded both cultural ma-
terial and physical settlement data that inform pre-
historians about the organization and function of an
oppidum. Oppidum (plural, oppida) is the term that
Julius Caesar used to describe large, fortified towns
that may have served as administrative centers for
the Gallic tribes he had come north to conquer be-
tween 58 and 50
B.C.
The role of oppida is debated in the archaeolog-
ical literature mainly because of the structural vari-
ability among these settlements, which differ from
one another primarily in internal organization.
Criteria for identification are based on settlement
size, presence of fortification, industrial activities,
geographic position, and period of occupation.
Generally, the sites are large (hundreds of hectares)
and defensively enclosed by earth and timber walls
that use ditch and rampart technology. Such sites
were located on naturally defended or elevated
landscape features that intersected trade routes.
They included areas for intensive production of iron
implements and pottery. Oppida were established
and abandoned during the final two centuries
B.C.,
and their distribution across Europe coincides with
the occupation of territories by Celtic populations
from western France to the Czech Republic.
Manching is exceptional both for the scale of ar-
chaeological investigation that has focused on the
site and for the wealth and diversity of material evi-
dence collected there. Just south of Ingolstadt in
the county of Pfaffenhoffen, this 380-hectare site
once was situated on a river terrace along the Dan-
ube. The unusual setting (most oppida are elevated)
was compensated for by its encroachment on a
swamp along its northeast side. The supplemental
fortification constructed around the exposed por-
tion of the settlement is a 7.2-kilometer-long ram-
part wall of the murus Gallicus type. Muri Gallici—
timber-laced ramparts fronted by ditches—
generally are not seen as far east as Manching. The
Fig. 1. Site plan showing excavation areas (dark regions) at
modern-day Manching, Bavaria. Dark segments of modern
roadways show excavation areas necessitated by roadway
construction. ADAPTED FROM MOSCATI ET AL. 1991.
Kelheim-type rampart, with its exterior face con-
structed of vertical timbers and drystone wall (there
is no interior walling or timber lacing through the
earthen ramp), is more common throughout this
area. The site was known from the remains of the
wall from the early nineteenth century but was mis-
taken for a construction of Roman origin and iden-
tified only tentatively as Celtic in 1888 by a Roman-
ist familiar with Caesar’s De bello Gallico. In 1903
Paul Reinecke, working on an inventory of monu-
ments and historic places, recognized artifacts from
Manching that were similar to finds from oppida in
France and Bohemia.
Excavations at Manching have been necessitat-
ed by construction projects that started with a mili-
tary airfield between 1936 and 1938. A central por-
tion of the settlement was destroyed when
mechanical equipment was used to strip the area
and tear away part of the wall. Efforts to recover ar-
tifacts were restricted by the exigencies of impend-
ing war, and only those materials that could be res-
cued from the spoil piles were saved. Subsequently,
the airfield was bombed. In 1955 Allied forces de-
cided to rebuild the airfield and, following negotia-
tions with archaeologists, contributed an unprece-
dented sum of money for investigation of the
6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400
158
ANCIENT EUROPE
settlement and of the area that would be affected by
renewed construction. Excavation began that year
and continued until 1974 under the direction of
Werner Krämer. A subsequent excavation was orga-
nized in 1984, following a ten-year hiatus, through
the Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (the
Bavarian department that oversees protection of
cultural sites and monuments). This investigation
responded to the planned construction of an exit
ramp on the secondary roadway that passes through
the site (Landstrasse B16) and focused on a previ-
ously unexplored tract in the northern part of the
settlement. Approximately 1 kilometer long by
35–60 meters wide, a strip running from the center
of the roughly circular enclosed area to the wall was
examined. A further 6-hectare excavation was
begun in 1996. Materials in all these campaigns are
consistent with La Tène C1 (280–220
B.C.)
through D1 (120–80
B.C.) dates.
Evidence for development of the site shows a
multiphase sequence of settlement beginning as
early as the third century
B.C., making Manching
one of the older oppida. The earliest settlement is
concentrated toward the center of the enclosed area
and predates the construction of the wall. A track
oriented east-west runs through the old center and
provided the foundation for a later main street link-
ing the east and west gates of the murus Gallicus.
It is likely that the initial construction of the
wall (second half of the second century
B.C.) was an
expression of prestige that established Manching as
a focal point for activities centered on production
and exchange. These activities encompassed not
only collection of raw materials and manufacture of
goods but also feasting and the functions associated
with market towns and fairs. The wall itself was re-
built during the occupation of Manching, as is evi-
denced by a dendrochronological date for a struc-
ture in front of the eastern gate that coincides with
its renovation in 105
B.C. It is likely that the func-
tion of the wall changed through time from display
to defense because a third stage of construction re-
inforces the entire 7.2-kilometer length of the en-
closure. Furthermore, burials of individuals who
died of battle injuries attest to an attack on the set-
tlement.
The interior of the settlement seems to have
been organized to facilitate trade. Structures in-
clude rows of stalls, homes, and even warehouses for
the agricultural produce that made up the bulk of
exchanged goods. Raw materials used in the pro-
duction of glass, pottery, iron, and bronze indicate
that Manching was a thriving center for craft pro-
ducers. Coins were recovered from the settlement,
as were strikes used to mint coinage. Forty-eight
imported amphorae that contained Mediterranean
wine during transportation are among the items
that were traded. Published volumes covering the
analysis of the Manching materials feature bronze
finds, tools, fibulae, glass, faunal material, graphite
pottery, imported pottery and coarse wares, smooth
wheel-thrown pottery and painted pottery, and
human burials associated with the settlement.
See also La Tène (vol. 2, part 6); Oppida (vol. 2, part 6);
Hillforts (vol. 2, part 6).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bott, R. D., G. Grosse, F. E. Wagner, U. Wagner, R. Geb-
hard, and J. Riederer. “The Oppidum of Manching: A
Center of Celtic Culture in Early Europe.” Natur-
wissenschaften 81, no. 12 (1994): 560–562.
Collis, John. Oppida: Earliest Towns North of the Alps. Char-
lesworth, U.K.: H. Huddersfield, 1984.
Dannheimer, Hermann, and Rupert Gebhard, eds. Das
keltische Jahrtausend. Mainz, Germany: Philipp von
Zabern, 1993.
Gebhard, Rupert. “The Celtic Oppidum of Manching and
Its Exchange System.“ In Different Iron Ages: Studies
on the Iron Age in Temperate Europe. Edited by J. D.
Hill and C. G. Cumberpatch, pp. 111–120. BAR Inter-
national Series, no. 602. Oxford: British Archaeological
Reports, 1995.
Green, Miranda J., ed. The Celtic World. London: Rout-
ledge, 1995.
Krämer, Werner. “The Oppidum at Manching.” Antiquity
34 (1960): 191–200.
Moscati, Sabatino, et al., eds. The Celts. New York: Rizzoli,
1991.
Wells, Peter S. Farms, Villages, and Cities: Commerce and
Urban Origins in Late Prehistoric Europe. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1984.
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