La Tène (place of discovery)

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Ship Berth La Tene Plage near the square Fund

The site of La Tène (pronounced [ la ˈtɛːn ]) in the Swiss municipality of the same name was named in the 19th century for the archaeological classification of the younger pre-Roman Iron Age as the Latène Age . The site near Epagnier , a place in the municipality of La Tène , is in boggy land on the eastern shore of Lake Neuchâtel , where it is connected to Lake Biel by the Zihl Canal .

The finds and their dating

The inventory of the objects includes around 2500 items. Since the site was then under water, pieces of tissue and objects made of wood and leather were also recovered: attack and defense weapons made of iron or wood (swords and scabbards, lance and arrowheads, a bow, shields, wagon components), tools for both Trades and farming ( scythes , hatchets , knives, scissors, a wooden plow, etc.), horse harness , wooden plates and bowls, rings and brooches made of iron and bronze, pieces of tissue, various bronze objects, several pots, some Roman bricks , Roman millstones, Gallic and Roman coins , ceramic vessels.

The swords and their scabbards are worth mentioning because they are best suited for a relative chronology . In order to date La Tène, comparisons were made between the scabbards and fibulae, lance tips and coins. These studies gave the following events: Although there are swords from the spring La Tène, most of the swords, scabbards, lance tips and fibulae show that the station was mainly used in the middle La Tène. The Spätlatène could be assigned no swords, while Spätlatène-fibulae were found. This means that La Tène was celebrated for a long period, from the second half of the 3rd century to the 1st century BC. Chr.

Some wooden objects could be dendrochronologically dated: Bridge piles to the time from 254 - 251 BC. A shield gave the date 229 BC. Chr. And a wheel came from the year 38 BC. Chr.

The objects from La Tène are now scattered over five continents. Various works of art and skeletons have been sold illegally, making it very difficult to keep a complete inventory of the finds. However, the majority of the objects are in the Swiss National Museum in Zurich and in the Laténium , the archaeological museum of the canton of Neuchâtel in Hauterive .

Today there is a campsite in La Tène on the site of the former settlement and the site of the gold treasure .

History of excavation and interpretation

Before the first Jura water correction

The level of today's Lake Neuchâtel is on average two meters lower than in the 19th century, before the first correction of the Jura waterways between 1868 and 1891. La Tène was therefore about sixty to seventy centimeters under water. This shallow, from which posts appeared here and there, was called "Tène" by the fishermen.

In November 1857 the fisherman Hansli Kopp, who worked for Colonel Friedrich Schwab, came across the settlement. In the course of an hour he pulled forty iron weapons out of the muddy ground with claws. By 1860, two collections had already been created: the Schwab Museum in Biel and the Cantonal Museum of Archeology in Neuchâtel, today's Laténium. The objects of Alexis Dardel-Thorens, who examined the area from 1858 to 1866, were bought by the Folklore Museum in Berlin after his death.

In 1863 there was a first attempt at interpretation: La Tène was a Celtic pile building . The stations around Lake Neuchâtel, characterized by iron objects, were first settled by Celtic , then by Helvetic tribes, who had left their seats in southwestern Germania.

In 1864, Pierre Jean Édouard Desor published the results of his research on pile dwellings from all eras around Lake Neuchâtel. He compared different sites and finds and examined the classical written sources for the historical epochs, i.e. H. for the Iron Age. However, since he did not find any report on Celtic pile dwelling settlements, he concluded that La Tène was a Helvetian arsenal in a boggy area where the bog seemed to be a suitable protection.

The first comparisons

Thanks to the comparisons with the finds from Tiefenau near Bern and Alesia ( Alise-Sainte-Reine ), the researchers were able to attribute the iron objects (especially the weapons) from La Tène to the Helvetians. They belong to the late Celtic period. The place of manufacture was attributed to Gallic, perhaps Belgian workshops by analogy. This thesis was later contradicted by Paul Vouga at the beginning of the 20th century: He suggested that the weapons were made in the Jura .

Jurassic correction

After the first correction of the Jura waterways, the water sank by about two meters and the lake retreated to the west. Various known and as yet unknown settlements appeared in the truest sense of the word. Only this fact made the first real excavations possible. Geological studies showed that in the Latène period the lake level was much lower. The water rose from the Roman period, ie La Tène was built on dry ground: it was not a settlement with direct access to the water .

Emil Vouga conducted the first archaeological research. Shortly before that, in 1876, during the International Congress of Anthropology and Archeology in Stockholm, the Swedish archaeologist Hans Hildebrand gave the second period of the Iron Age the name "La Tène".

Emil Vouga dug northeast of the "excavations" of Schwab and Desor. His work was stopped due to lack of money; his work is nevertheless decisive because he was the first to recognize six buildings and two bridges and to describe them in detail. The bridges were later named "Pont Vouga" (southeast) and "Pont Desor" (northwest). In 2003 the latter could be traced back to around 660 BC. BC, so did not come from Roman times, as was assumed for a long time. There is no more precise description of the buildings that could help to determine the function of these "houses" today. Emil Vouga brought various iron objects to light and discovered a surprising number of human and animal remains, which were only examined much later. For a few months, F. Borel, caretaker of the museum, excavated in La Tène, but did not document his work and sold various pieces to Bern and Geneva. In 1885 the situation was finally regulated by the canton of Neuchâtel: The Société des Sciences Naturelles was given the exclusive right to excavate; Emile Vouga continued the scientific work together with William Wavre.

Until 1886 the find situation resulted in five points:

  • The architectural structures consist of two bridges, a palisade and five houses that stand on a small "island" between the former and the main bed of the Zihl .
  • The weapons found are partly undamaged, but mostly broken.
  • There was no trace of a female presence.
  • Numerous human skeletons make up the bone spectrum.
  • The place where it was found undoubtedly had a strategic value: it was a naturally fortified settlement between Lake Biel, Lake Murten and Lake Neuchâtel, at the intersection of the north-south and east-west routes.

Emile Vouga and Gross shared the opinion that it was not a village, but an oppidum . Both authors were of the opinion that La Tène had already existed before 200 BC. BC, although the place had its heyday during the last two centuries before Christ. Presumably the XXI. Legion occupied the camp, as the roof tiles attest.

In the course of time, several attempts at interpretation followed one another. One can differentiate between three types of interpretations:

  • Military: the settlement served as an arsenal, observation station and / or fortified refuge.
  • Economical: La Tène was a weapon-making workshop, warehouse and / or trading center.
  • Both: The place was a warehouse and a workshop that was converted into a refuge in an emergency.

All three “schools” agreed on the end of La Tène: The station was abandoned and destroyed, probably after a fight.

The excavations of W. Wavre and P. Vouga

In 1906 a commission for the La Tène excavations was elected, led by William Wavre and Paul Vouga , son of Emil Vouga. The excavations took place from 1907 to 1918, the publication appeared in 1923. The bank and bed of the Zihl were systematically examined; numerous groups of objects reappeared. The findings presented themselves as groups of similar devices. These "bags" still serve today as evidence of two opposing theses: One defends the view that the station was a sanctuary where packaged iron implements and swords were thrown into the water; the other considers that La Tène was a military warehouse where the goods were packed. The objects mostly appeared in the bank zones and there in sediments that had been washed ashore by the current. The southern bank, at Pont Vouga, was particularly rich in finds (two human skeletons were also excavated there). In contrast, virtually nothing was found in the river bed.

In 1923, Vouga summarized the certain points of the Latène research and came to the conclusion: At that time it was already assumed that La Tène was not a pile dwelling settlement, but a station built on the south bank of the Zihl. The place was fortified by a palisade; the objects found are entirely Gallic; More recent coins and fibulae have been recovered outside the station, which is why they cannot be used to interpret the La Tène site. So La Tène was not a customs, as Joseph Déchelette had suspected in 1914. Female costume elements are missing, while weapons make up the majority of the finds. Since neither anvil nor blacksmith's hammer nor metal manufacturing waste had been recovered, La Tène was not a workshop. Numerous objects were found in certain combinations, mostly new and still packed in coarse fabric: It is therefore a warehouse. In Vouga's opinion, La Tène was a fortified camp under military occupation.

At the end of the excavations, the inventory of the objects was enormous: 2500 were stored, although such pieces have a controversial origin: swords with and without scabbards, suspension rings, lance tips and lance shoes, shields, shield bosses , helmets, pikes, arrowheads, a bow, pieces of jewelry and Brooches, various iron implements (fishing, agriculture, craftsmanship, horse harness, wagon pieces), various rings, vessels made of bronze, wood and clay, knives, iron bars and toys.

The more recent research

After Paul Vouga and William Wavre, no further excavations followed because the objects had to be cataloged and the results published. The monograph was published in 1923. The entire catalog was never recorded. Studies, articles and works will continue into the 21st century.

Klaus Raddatz compared the circumstances of La Tène described by Paul Vouga with those in northern Germany and Denmark, where there were safe places of worship. He found so many similarities, especially with regard to skeletons and weapons, that he was the first to give the station a sacred interpretation. His thesis, which appeared in 1952, was supported by René Wyss in 1955. The military character of the settlement was strengthened. E. Pelichet contradicted Raddatz in the same year: He invited to pay attention because Raddatz had not made use of the fact that it is extremely difficult to get a clear idea of ​​the location. The origin of many of the objects that are in the museums with the label “La Tène” is not clear, and the sketchy and imprecise reports on the wooden structures in situ are insufficient to imagine the location.

In an essay on the animal bone spectrum, Herbert Jankuhn revealed in 1966 that only the following skeletal parts were present: skulls and legs, mostly from cattle and horses. Not a single hunting animal was recovered: it was an atypical find for an inhabited area. Jankuhn has expanded and deepened the study by Keller, which is contained in Vouga's monograph. He compared the site with similar finds and findings in Danish and North German bog finds, which are now considered secure cult sites. The animal bone spectrum in Denmark and Northern Germany corresponded to that in La Tène: no wild animals, but horse bones in a very specific selection (skull bones and lower extremity remains). Another bone study, this time on human remains, showed that a skull and a long bone had traces of injuries. The researcher Renate Rolle suggested that they were remnants of human sacrifice and / or cannibalism . Finally, the first cataloging of the work of José Maria de Navarro took place, who compiled the swords and their scabbards and set up a precise scabbard chronology.

In the 1960s, at the time of the second Jura water correction, the Zihl caused another surprise: A new settlement appeared: Cornaux . In 1989 Hanni Schwab published a study on the Celts on the Broye and Zihl rivers , in which she also mentions La Tène. Your thesis on leaving the place is interesting, although it is incorrect: Cornaux and La Tène were villages that had a port. They were at the same time, and both were destroyed at the same time by a huge flood. In 1977 geological studies contradicted this thesis.

The use of the wooden structures is still a mystery today because nobody except Emil Vougas (who did not provide detailed information about it) dealt with it. These structures have been lost for today's research.

In the Neuchâtel Laténium Museum , the bones and objects found in La Tène are interpreted to mean that on the occasion of the above-mentioned flooding, people wanted to leave the settlement with carts, animals, weapons and belongings over a bridge. It collapsed and dragged people and animals with it to their death.

literature

  • Victor Gross: La Tène. Un oppidum helvète. Fetscherin & Chuit, Paris 1886.
  • Emile A. Vouga: Les Helvètes à La Tène. Notice historique. Altinger, Neuchâtel 1885.
  • Paul Vouga : La Tène. Monograph de la station. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1923.
  • Hanni Schwab: Archeology de la 2e correction des eaux du Jura. Volume 1: Les Celtes sur la Broye et la Thielle (= Archeology Fribourgeoise 5). Editions Universitaires, Friborg 1989, ISBN 2-8271-0485-7 .
  • Felix Müller , Gilbert Kaenel , Geneviève Lüscher (eds.): Switzerland from the Palaeolithic to the early Middle Ages. SPM. From Neanderthals to Charlemagne. = La Suisse du Paléolithique à l'aube du Moyen-Age. Volume 4: Iron Age. = Age you Fer. = Età del Ferro. Swiss Society for Prehistory and Early History, Basel 1999, ISBN 3-908006-53-8 .
  • Felix Müller: Gods, gifts, rituals. Religion in the early history of Europe (= cultural history of the ancient world . Vol. 92). von Zabern, Mainz 2002, ISBN 3-8053-2801-X .
  • Felix Müller: The mass find from Tiefenau near Bern. For the interpretation of the latène period collection finds with weapons (= Antiqua 20). Swiss Society for Prehistory and Early History, Basel 1990, ISBN 3-908006-12-0 (At the same time: Habilitation thesis, University of Bern, 1990).
  • José M. de Navarro: The finds from the site of La Tène. Volume 1: Scabbards and the swords found in them. 2 volumes. Oxford University Press, London 1972, ISBN 0-19-725909-X ;
    • Volume 1, Part 1: Text.
    • Volume 1, Part 2: Catalog and Plates.

Movie

  • The twilight of the Celts. Documentation, Switzerland, 2007, 53 min. Director: Stéphane Goël, production: arte , SSR , Summary of arte
    (Due to an emergency excavation came archaeologists on the top of lying beside Lake Neuchâtel Mormont on the largest previously known Celtic worship.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gianna Reginelli, Judit Becze-Deàk, Patrick Gassmann: La Tène revisitée en 2003: Résultats préliminaires et perspectives, in: L'âge du Fer dans l'arc jurassien et ses marges. Dépôts, lieux sacrés et territorialité à l'âge du Fer. Actes du XXIVe colloque international de l'AFEAF Bienne 5-8 May 2005, Vol. 2, pp. 373–389, here: p. 388.

Coordinates: 47 ° 0 '19.5 "  N , 7 ° 1' 18.9"  E ; CH1903:  568309  /  206125