In the preceding chapters, I have examined three categories of objects—pottery, fibulae, and swords with their scabbards—and two ways of manipulating objects—arrangements in graves and performances involving human bodily action with objects—over the two-thousand-year period from the Early Bronze Age to the end of the prehistoric Iron Age. My focus has been on visual aspects of objects, and my main subject the changes in their visual character over time.
My argument is that by examining these categories of objects and their use by early Europeans, we can discern something of how prehistoric Europeans “saw” in both the literal and metaphorical senses of that verb, how they perceived things visually, and how they understood their places in the world. My approach is different from that of most studies of Bronze and Iron Age Europe, in which investigators try to understand changes in terms of categories of organization and practice that correspond to those familiar to us from studies of the historical past and of the modern world (social structure, political organization, trade systems, and so forth). Instead I attempt to understand the world of the past in terms of how the people who lived in it viewed and understood it. The systematic analysis of visual structures and details points up how makers and arrangers in early Europe fashioned the material world and how the people who inhabited that world perceived objects visually.
The concepts outlined in Chapter 2—the visual world, ecological psychology, and extended mind theory—help to situate the objects of study in a theoretical framework. The visual world concept helps us to appreciate the coherence of the visual experience of any individual in the environment in which he or she lives. Ecological psychology teaches that everything in that environment contributes to the individual’s perception and experience, that seeing needs to be considered as part of an experience that involves all of the senses, and that the individual does not just experience one thing in an environment—one object—but rather the totality of that environment. Extended mind theory emphasizes the importance of the object, or the arrangement of objects, as a device to think with as well as to see.
By focusing attention on a specific selection of visual features—including lines, edges, surfaces, and figures—it has been possible to compare and contrast visual aspects of objects and arrangements from different times during the two millennia under consideration. Gibson’s idea of affordances, together with Bender and Marrinan’s of white spaces, helps us to appreciate the importance of the parts of objects and arrangements that are not filled in but left open, on purpose. These can be as important to visual perception and response as the incised spirals, hybrid animals, and other visually more striking features.
The notion of the crafted object as a diagram is central to the entire discussion. Neidich argues that paintings are diagrams of the societies that produce them, and Bender and Marrinan show how the engravings in Diderot’s Encyclopédie are diagrams of that cultural context, but the concept can be applied just as usefully to all crafted objects, designs, and images, as well as to arrangements of things. Every object shaped and decorated by human hands can be understood as representative of the society in which it was fashioned. Some, such as the paintings that Neidich has in mind, provide much more complex information than others, but the principle is valid for all objects, including handmade Bronze Age pottery and simple mass-produced Late Iron Age fibulae.
In this chapter, I synthesize the material laid out in Chapters 5 through 10. I draw attention to the consistency of the patterns in the visual character of material culture in each of the three main periods of time considered in this book, and to the character of the changes that took place in the fifth century BC and in the second century BC.
The first time period examined in this book is characterized by strongly geometric patterning in material culture, a characteristic that unites the developments of the millennium-and-a-half from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, 2000–500 BC. The use of straight lines and of geometric shapes, including squares, triangles, rhomboids, and circles, is the outstanding feature of the decorative patterns on the pottery, fibulae, and scabbards examined above, and also on other categories of material, most notably straight pins during the Bronze Age and belt plates during the Early Iron Age. This consistent use of geometric patterning applied to all categories of material culture indicates a particular way of seeing and of understanding the world.
Significant changes in visual aspects of material culture are also apparent during this fifteen-hundred-year period, and they reflect changes in ways of seeing and in attitudes toward the natural and social environments. Changes in the character of pottery are especially valuable as indicators of these changes. Throughout the Bronze Age, three categories of vessel dominate assemblages—jars, bowls, and cups. Jars are often large and bulbous in shape, with constricted necks, and they were commonly used to store grain and other foodstuffs, as finds at settlements demonstrate. They are ordinarily rough-textured, not polished, and often show sizeable pebbles in their fabric. Jar decoration includes a variety of motifs impressed into the clay by the potter’s fingers or by other tools, and it commonly occurs both on the rim and on one or two raised bands around the top of the shoulder. I have argued that jars were fashioned in this way so as to refer to the fields on which the produce that was kept in the jars was grown. The tan to brown color and the deliberately rough texture of the exterior surface strongly evoke the appearance of the fields when ready for planting or freshly planted. These particular characteristics of jars change gradually during the Early Iron Age, indicating a decrease in the desire to reference the fields through the visual characteristics of this category of pottery.
In contrast to jars and cups, bowls are ordinarily undecorated during the Bronze Age. They are usually polished so that they have smooth surfaces both inside and outside, but are otherwise strikingly plain compared to the other two categories. In the Early Iron Age, however, some large bowls are highly decorated on the inside, the surface that is visible when the bowls are in use.
Cups show a distinctive pattern of change over the course of the Bronze Age. In the Early Bronze Age, they are larger than in the following periods, and they commonly have only one of two kinds of decoration—either a series of three or four sharply incised horizontal lines around the top of the shoulder or a single incised line at the top of the shoulder and incised and filled triangles dropping down from that line. In the Middle Bronze Age, cups are much more varied in character. Some have little or no ornament (sometimes a modest row of impressed dots around the vessel at the top of the shoulder), while others, much smaller than the cups of the Early Bronze Age, carry elaborate incised ornament. The decoration of each of these small cups is unique, in marked contrast to the two ornamental alternatives of the Early Bronze Age. In the Late Bronze Age, this trend toward individualizing decoration reaches its apogee in small, thin-walled, often highly ornate cups, each unique in its pattern of incised decoration.
In the Early Iron Age, a significant change takes place with the addition of patterns of zonal decoration. Jars of this period tend not to have the rough textures and relatively simple linear ornament of Bronze Age jars, but have instead incised geometric shapes on their bodies and shoulders. The same kinds of shapes now decorate both bowls and cups as well.
These changes in the ways that these features of pottery were fashioned can tell us important things about the visual world of the people of the time and about how they conceived their relationships with the world in which they lived and with the society of which they were part. The texturing of jars in the Bronze Age points to a special concern with the productive capabilities of the landscape. This characteristic of the jars is evident during the entirety of the Bronze Age, well over a millennium of time. In contrast, this aspect of jars gradually diminishes during the Early Iron Age, suggesting a shift in concern from relationships with the natural world and its productivity to relationships within the social sphere.
The patterning of cups during the Bronze Age and the decoration of all categories of vessels during the Early Iron Age reflect these social concerns. The change in the character of cups during the twelve hundred years of the Bronze Age is particularly significant. The limited decorative repertoire of the larger Early Bronze Age cups suggests that they were used communally (by members of a family perhaps) and that it was therefore not necessary to mark each in such a way as to designate association with a particular individual. Many families used cups with similar ornament. In the Middle Bronze Age we encounter the new individuality of the much smaller cups. Each is decorated differently from every other; this, and their size suggests individual rather than group, use. Then, in the Late Bronze Age, we again find highly decorated cups, each small and with its own individual patterning, representing specific individuals.
In the Early Iron Age, the growth in the use of zonal patterns of decoration indicates increasing concern with differentiation. The structure of the ornament on pottery of this period, similar to that on belt plates and other objects of the time, emphasizes separation and difference, themes that are not apparent in the material culture of the earlier stages of the Bronze Age.
The patterns of change in pottery, then, indicate a gradual shift of focus over some fifteen hundred years from concern with the natural environment, to concern with the social environment, reflecting a shift from a society in which members of communities were regarded first and foremost as members of groups, to one in which individual group members express their differences from others.
Changes in the visual patterns of fibulae and scabbards can be understood in a similar way. The earliest fibulae of the Bronze Age are geometric in form, with a parallel pin and thin bow, sometimes with flat circular forms extending from the head and foot ends. Late Bronze Age fibulae tend to be much thicker and to employ new shapes, such as semicircular bows and wire spirals. In the Early Iron Age two significant changes occur. One is the introduction of the S-curve, in the bow of serpentine fibulae and finally in the overall shape of the Fusszier and Pauken fibulae. The second change is the inlaying of materials, most often on the foot, a practice indicative of the same visual differentiation that we notice in the pottery. These changes in the fibulae can be understood as reflections of an increased emphasis on the differentiation of individuals. The use of a compelling visual device, the S-curve, enhanced the effectiveness of the fibulae in capturing the eye of the viewer.
The visual aspects of swords and scabbards, as well as of the Early Iron Age daggers and sheaths, show similar patterns. Scabbard and sheath decoration is consistently geometric throughout the period, with an emphasis on straight lines running the length of the surface. In the Late Bronze Age, the often highly ornate patterns of incised decoration on the hilts parallel the ornament on the fine cups of the same period and, like the cups, the decoration on each sword is different from that on any other sword. In the Early Iron Age, some swords are distinguished from the majority by special decoration on the handle or the pommel, sometimes of sheet-gold and ivory. In the latter part of the Early Iron Age, details of the handles and pommels often show a similar individualizing, sometimes with inlay as we have seen on some fibulae.
With respect to the arrangement of objects in graves and the manipulation of objects in performances, the evidence shows a gradual and steady increase in scale and complexity. In the early phases of the Bronze Age, graves tend to be simple, irregularly shaped pits in the ground, with few grave goods other than personal ornaments attached to the body and clothing of the deceased. In the Middle Bronze Age some chambers appear, with a small number of objects arranged in the open space between the body and the grave wall. In the later phases of the Bronze Age, chambers become more common, and the displays of objects more extensive. This process reaches it culmination in the Early Iron Age, with tens of objects, mostly ceramic vessels but also weapons and equipment associated with horses and wagons, arranged in the chambers, as at Hradenín, Grosseibstadt, Hochdorf, and Vix. In concert with the expansion of the burial space and the quantity of objects arranged on the floor is the increasing importance of feasting equipment in the graves. Sets of vessels, both ceramic and bronze, associated with feasting are first clearly identifiable in the Late Bronze Age, and by the time of the Grosseibstadt and Hochdorf burials, the feast is fully established as a performance to be represented in the grave by vessels appropriate to it.
Concurrent with pottery and fibulae that evoke differentiation; swords, scabbards, and daggers that, through the use of inlay and exotic materials signal the special status of the owners; and the use of extra space and greater numbers of objects—especially those associated with feasting performance, the graves also present us now with pictorial representations of performances of martial activity. Figures represented on the Strettweg vehicle and on the Hochdorf couch hold weapons, reflecting a new concern not just with displaying weapons as objects set in burials, but with showing them in action, in the hands of performers.
In summary, the gradual changes in visual patterns and representations during the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age show a shift from a primary concern with relationships with the land to a concern with relationships within social communities; an increase in complexity reflected in more differentiation in the decoration of pottery, fibulae, and swords and scabbards; and in greater burial spaces and more extensive arrangements of objects. By the end of this phase, more attention was being given to the social roles played by specific individuals, represented in the most richly outfitted burials, such as those at Hochdorf and Vix. Finally, the increased display of materials and products from distant sources, such as the amber, coral, and ivory used to decorate fibulae and sword handles, as well as the sets of imported vessels in the richer burials, point to the importance of growing contact with communities in other regions beyond temperate Europe.
The key to understanding the changes in visual aspects of material culture during the fifth century BC is the increasing connectedness prehistoric Europeans were feeling with the larger world beyond the communities and regional groupings that had in previous times framed their lives. The new visual expressions of the fifth, fourth, and third centuries BC can be interpreted as expressions of these changing feelings about and perceptions of their relationships not just with the natural world or with the communities in which they lived and interacted daily, but with this larger world that was opening to them as a result both of travel experiences (by mercenaries, merchants, and diplomats) and the much more common experiences of new goods coming into their communities and into their consciousness. Chapter 12 develops this theme.
This new attitude constituted a repositioning of worldview and of the sense of self. Relations with the local elites were no longer so important, replaced by a sense of relationship to the larger world. One widespread sign of this new attitude was the prevalence of the attention-getting S-curve in both the shape of objects and the decoration on objects. Its use marks a departure from the geometric patterned ornament of the preceding period and an entrance into the new visual world of the next three centuries. Especially at the beginning of this process, the S-curve is important in drawing our attention to the fact that new kinds of relationships were taking precedence over old ones.
If we adopt this approach, there will be no need to posit the “revolution” or “overthrow” of the Hallstatt D elites that has been a research problem for so long. What happened in the fifth century BC was not a revolution but a change in perspective, in outlook, in worldview, and with it came changes in visual expression.
Nor does the old idea that the “Early La Tène Style,” or “Early Celtic Art,” developed because local craftworkers copied designs on Greek and Etruscan imports hold up to scrutiny of the accumulating evidence (for discussion of this issue, see Chapter 12).
Pottery of the fifth and following centuries BC was no longer decorated in the zonal fashion of the previous period. Most now had no decoration on the surface, but when there was decoration, it was with patterns in the new style, with incised S-curves and sometimes with representations of plants and animals. The shape of pottery vessels often incorporated the S-curve into their profiles, as is especially apparent in a new vessel type: a bottle with a lens-shaped lower portion and a long neck with a flaring rim. It is also notable on bowls and jars with sharply angled sides.
In this period, potters borrowed ideas about vessel shapes directly from imports. Particularly noteworthy are ceramic versions of the Etruscan bronze beak-spouted jugs (Schnabelkannen) that have been recovered at a number of different places in temperate Europe, including Mont Lassois in France and the Dürrnberg in Austria. Also significant are efforts to transform imported vessels by adding to them or reshaping them. Examples are the gold attachments added to the kylikes at Kleinaspergle and the reshaping of the Etruscan bronze jug from the grave at Schwarzenbach. All of these actions indicate that Europeans had adopted a different attitude toward the visual characteristics of Mediterranean imports from that of their predecessors. The Greek and Etruscan imports found in Early Iron Age contexts were unaltered—the Europeans who received, possessed, and used them were content to keep them as they were. But with all of the changes that marked the fifth century, in particular changes in Europeans’ ways of conceptualizing their place in the world, a desire developed to alter imported items so as to transform them into objects visually consistent with Europeans’ new ways of visualizing.
Fibulae are particularly noteworthy expressions of this new way of seeing. The S-curve is fundamental to the shape of fibulae from the fifth, fourth, and third centuries BC, and it is this shape, combined with the three-dimensional formlines, that makes the fibulae of these centuries so attractive. The hybrid creatures that appear now on fibulae, as well as spiral patterns and areas of hatching, are yet other visual devices to attract and hold attention.
Scabbards are decorated with the same kinds of motifs as fibulae: incised patterns based on S-curves, hybrid creatures, sometimes integrated into the S-curve pattern, and patterns of hatching and open spaces (affordances).
Grave arrangements are now much less spacious than those of the Early Iron Age, though a few of the richer burials of the fifth century BC still have chambers comparable to those of the preceding period (such as the burial at Vix in France around 480 BC and at Reinheim in Germany around 400 BC). By the fourth century BC, graves are ordinarily just big enough to accommodate a body and a small number of grave goods, if any. Women’s graves are characterized by personal ornaments and sometimes contain a ceramic vessel as well. Some (but not the majority) of men’s burials contain sets of iron weapons, and sometimes a vessel.
Whereas in the Early Iron Age, performances were organized around the funerary ceremonies associated with individuals, in the Middle Iron Age performances were situated in open spaces and not linked to particular persons. This change represents a shift away from performances highlighting individuals and their roles in communities and toward an emphasis on public participation in community rituals and a new awareness of landscape. The latter may be related to the growing self-awareness of European communities of their place in the larger world, an awareness that lends new importance to one’s own space and landscape. Performances involving the display and deposition of objects customarily took place in settings of unusual natural character, such as the stone arch at Egesheim, the springs at the source of the Douix in France and Duchcov in the Czech Republic, and in spaces created specifically for the purpose, such as the enclosures at Gournay and Ribemont in France.
Performances of martial activity are represented as larger-scale and show a higher level of organization than was suggested by earlier examples. The scene on the scabbard from grave 994 at Hallstatt and those on several of the situlae show well-armed troops portrayed as members of organized military units. As their awareness of other parts of the world and of their place in it grew, Europeans became more involved and aware of systematic military activity, especially when some began serving as mercenaries in lands around the eastern Mediterranean.
In summary, the visual patterns of the Middle Iron Age suggest progressively less concern with the relationships of elite individuals to the communities in which they lived, and more concern with relationships to the larger world. The prevalence of S-curve motifs can be understood as a means to express this new sense of identity in relation to a larger social universe than that of the immediate community or even of the society. The appearance and proliferation of hybrid creatures in the ornament of the fifth century BC on fibulae and scabbards (as well as on other categories of personal ornamentation not discussed here) can be viewed both as means of attracting attention through their visual qualities, and also of fashioning new signs of community identity in the changing world. The shift of major performances from the graves of individuals, such as those at Hradenín, Hochdorf, and Vix, to open public spaces as at Gournay and Ribemont similarly reflects this change in perceived relationships from those of individuals within communities to those of communities with other communities in the larger universe.
The changes in ways of seeing after 200 BC are also best understood with reference to the increasing experience of belonging to a bigger world, but with a different focus. The new ways of perceiving of the Middle Iron Age relate primarily to the experience of a bigger world, of new ideas and new themes; those of the Late Iron Age relate primarily to commercial participation in that larger world. Feelings about belonging to the larger world are of course part of this, but in the Late Iron Age, much of what was perceived, understood, and felt about relationships was tied specifically to commerce and to the increased production and movement of goods that commerce entailed.
The visual world of the Late Iron Age was much affected by the technological and social fact of mass production, which was a direct result of participation in the expanding “world system” of Mediterranean, Asian, and African commerce (see Chapter 12). The potter’s wheel came into general use during this time, and the majority of pottery, especially at large settlements, was made on the fast wheel. The dominant fibula types were designed to be mass-produced rather than individually crafted. And scabbards, as well as many other kinds of objects, were decorated much less elaborately than they had been in previous times. Every aspect of seeing and of design was affected by the increased efficiency of manufacturing and the changed character of objects that resulted.
The pottery assemblages of this period have four special characteristics that differentiate them from those of earlier periods. One is the fact of wheel manufacture, which resulted in both more standardized sizes and shapes, and in sharper profiles for many vessels. A second is the use of vertical line decoration, sometimes created by a comb, at other times by a stylus drawn down the side of an almost-dry vessel. The third is the development of thin-walled, beige colored, painted wares, the finest and most delicate of the categories of pottery. The fourth is a new shape, a cylindrical jar with a narrow base, a swelling central part, and a very wide mouth; it was an elegant form new to the pottery repertoire of temperate Europe.
Fibulae are much less ornate than in either of the previous periods, and they have for the most part lost the S-curve in their morphology. One distinctive aspect of some fibulae late in the sequence is the openwork treatment of the foot, which includes a small ornamental join across the center of the opening.
Scabbards rarely bear incised ornament over their entire surface, as some had in the Middle Iron Age, but instead often have distinctive ornament at the top. A new form of openwork decoration appears on the top parts of some scabbards at the very end of the Iron Age, in a technique similar to that used on contemporary fibulae.
Fundamental changes took place in practices involved in the disposal of the dead. The practice of burial, common from the Neolithic Period through the Middle Iron Age, now declined precipitously. Other ways of treating the bodies of the dead are apparent at some sites, such as Ribemont in France and Leonding in Austria. At Manching and many other settlements, including Knovíze in Bohemia and Basel-Gasfabrik in Switzerland, substantial human remains have been recovered from settlement surfaces and in pits, suggesting new kinds of rituals. A very small proportion of people were buried in chambers reminiscent of those of the Early Iron Age, and with substantial feasting materials, including now sometimes Roman wine amphorae, andirons, and grills.
Performances involving the manipulation of objects were again practiced in the outfitting of rich burials, as had been done at the end of the Early Iron Age. Some enclosures of the types constructed in the Middle Iron Age continued to be used for the display of objects through performances, but they tended to be smaller than those at Gournay and Ribemont. Well-documented sites of this period include Braine in France, Hayling Island in southern Britain, and Empel in the Netherlands. Performances that are not directly linked to graves take place in smaller, and perhaps much less public settings than had been the case in the Middle Iron Age, as for example the burial of gold and silver objects at Snettisham and St. Louis and related sites, and iron deposits at Kolín and Wauwiler Moos. Gabriele Kurz has noted, and mapped, a significant differential distribution of deposited materials from this period, with coin deposits more numerous west of the Rhine and iron deposits more numerous to the east. Martial performance is now well represented iconographically, as on the Gundestrup cauldron, and in special deposits, such as that at Tintignac.
Two new elements entered the visual world of late prehistoric Europe in the late fourth, third, and second centuries BC—coins and writing. Both were introduced from outside, from the Mediterranean world. While coins with writing on them had reached temperate Europe from Greece by the end of the fourth century BC, neither coinage nor writing became major factors in the northern visual world until the latter half of the second and the first centuries BC.
Coins became part of the visual world of mass-produced objects during the final two centuries BC, together with wheelmade pottery, serially manufactured fibulae, and all of the other kinds of objects that were made in series now, rather than individually crafted as they had been earlier. Coins are the archetypal mass-produced object—hundreds or thousands of nearly identical objects were stamped and cast. They fit smoothly into the trend toward mass production that was already under way, and they contributed to the rapidly expanding volume of mass-produced goods.
Writing was different. On the one hand, it was a new technology in temperate Europe—nothing like it had been practiced previously (though, as we have seen above, some earlier imported objects bore inscriptions). Minters of coins adopted writing insofar as they used Greek and Latin letters to inscribe their names on coin dies. It is thus apparent that they understood this new technology to some extent and appreciated its value for communicating the information that they wanted on their coins. Even the very limited dissemination of writing in this medium during the latter part of the second and the first centuries BC brought the new technology to the attention of a large proportion of Late Iron Age Europeans. No doubt this early familiarity with writing played an important part in the reception of Roman inscriptions after the conquests, even though the vast majority of Europeans could not read or write.
On the other hand, the letters that were struck onto coins and inscribed on other objects were new elements in the visual world as visual elements, quite aside from their meanings as texts. The importance of this aspect of writing is clear when we look at derivative versions of original Greek coins that turn what had been Greek letters into linear patterns that no longer form recognizable letters. Alphabetic writing as linear patterning played an important role in the developing visual world of the Late Iron Age.
Changes in ways of visualizing things and corresponding changes in the design and arrangement of objects enable us to discern three fundamentally different worldviews and approaches to marking connections between people and the world in which they live. In my argument here, the two big shifts happened as a result of people experiencing new ways of understanding the larger world and participating in it. The first, beginning in the fifth century BC, was expressed in new shapes, motifs, and forms associated with the perception of the larger world and expressive of a connectedness to that larger world on the one hand and of feelings of one’s own identity on the other. In the second shift, which took place in the second century BC, the change was primarily a response to joining into a much larger world-system of commerce that engulfed much of the eastern hemisphere during the final two centuries BC.
In both instances, new ways of looking at the world were expressed materially through new styles of material culture, which affected every aspect of people’s lives, from the pottery vessels from which they ate and drank to the ways in which they used objects in the performance of ceremonies.
The changes that took place during the second and first centuries BC in a very real sense prepared the peoples of temperate Europe for the conquest by Rome of about half of the European continent. Without these changes the conquest would have been a much more disruptive series of events. As it was, much of temperate Europe was well along the way to acquiring a new, world-commercially based mode of visualization more than a century before Caesar led his legions into Gaul in 58 BC. And as a result, although the Romans introduced a sizeable number of changes—including a new political system, taxation, stone architecture, paved roads, and Mediterranean-type cities—a great deal of this change remained superficial. As I have shown elsewhere, much of the local cultural tradition persisted throughout the Roman presence. Even modes of visualization did not change completely with the Roman conquest, as the material culture of the so-called “Celtic Renaissance” makes plain (Chapter 13).