Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State: The Evolution of Complex Social Systems in Prehistoric Europe

by Edited by Bettina Arnold , D. Blair Gibson

• ISBN13: 9780521585798
• ISBN10: 0521585791
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this collection, archaeologists, historians, geographers and language specialists re-examine the structure and political development of Celtic states scattered across present-day Europe. The main theoretical focus is on whether and when state-level complexity was attained in the different Celtic settlements. The contributors also discuss and evaluate the various methods for studying Celtic social systems: the historical textual studies, as opposed to the analysis of the archaeological record, and the use of regional comparisons. Interweaving archaeological and textual evidence, the result is an interdisciplinary study of state formation never before attempted on such a wide scale which contributes to our understanding of social complexity in Celtic Europe, and, more generally, to the processes underlying social transformation.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	x	(2)
List of contributors	xii	(1)
Acknowledgments	xii
1 Introduction. Beyond the mists: forging an ethnological approach to Celtic studies	1	(10)
Bettina Arnold
D. Blair Gibson
PART I CELTIC POLITICAL SYSTEMS: RESEARCH PARADIGMS	11	(30)
2 From chiefdom to state organization in Celtic Europe	13	(13)
Patrice Brun
3 Building an historical ecology of Gaulish polities	26	(8)
Carole L. Crumley
4 The early Celts of west central Europe: the semantics of social structure	34	(7)
Franz Fischer
PART II RECOVERING IRON AGE SOCIAL SYSTEMS	41	(32)
5 The material culture of social structure: rank and status in early Iron Age Europe	43	(10)
Bettina Arnold
6 The significance of major settlements in European Iron Age society	53	(11)
Olivier Buchsenschutz
7 Early "Celtic" socio-political relations: ideological representation and social competition in dynamic comparative perspective	64	(9)
Michael Dietler
PART III THE QUESTION OF STATEHOOD IN LA TENE EUROPE	73	(24)
8 States without centres? The middle La Tene period in temperate Europe	75	(6)
John Collis
9 Late Iron Age society in Britain and north-east Europe: structural transformation or superficial change?	81	(7)
Colin Haselgrove
10 Settlement and social systems at the end of the Iron Age	88	(9)
Peter S. Wells
PART IV EVOLUTION AND ETHNOHISTORY: THE PROTOHISTORIC POLITIES OF GAUL AND THE BRITISH ISLES	97	(40)
11 Modelling chiefdoms in the Scottish Highlands and islands prior to the '45	99	(11)
Robert A. Dodgshon
12 Caesar's perception of Gallic social structures	110	(6)
Sean B. Dunham
13 Chiefdoms, confederacies, and statehood in early Ireland	116	(13)
D. Blair Gibson
14 Clans are not primordial: pre-Viking Irish society and the modelling of pre-Roman societies in northern Europe	129	(8)
Nerys Thomas Patterson
Bibliography	137	(19)
Index	156