Content:
In prehistory, for which only a few contemporary sources exist, diachronic perspective to societal phenomena, like mobility, can be approached through limited evidence only. The common approach is aimed mostly at the identification of “foreigners” through stylistic analysis of their material culture. However, the La Tène culture (4th – 1st century BC), which is our period of interest, is known for its high level of interconnectedness that resulted in shared artistic and stylistic techniques across the large areas.
Nowadays, the standard way to detect movement is through strontium isotope analysis. The isotopic data on mobility can indicate changes of residence, although evidence of long-distance movement is problematic as same manifestations of mobility reflected in the data can represent different socio-economic, cultural or demographic models. Analysis of skeletal material from La Tène cemeteries across Europe shows that bio-archaeometric evidence alone makes no case for large-scale migrations labelled as the great “Celtic expansion”: a phenomenon between the 5th to 2nd century BC, that is supposed to affect large territories of Europe by repeated waves of migrants. Seemingly thus, the usual image of ‘Celtic migrations’ as conveyed in historical sources does not seem to be supported by isotopic analysis.
It is amid such fragmentary evidence that provenancing involving geochemical analysis of personal objects, in addition to traditional mobility isotopes (Sr, O, Pb) of human remains, may be useful in addressing questions of mobility by detecting various origins for what seem to be typologically identical everyday objects.
In this presentation, we would like will demonstrate our methodological approaches by examples and the individual case studies from this period in Central Europe.
Keywords:
Lead isotopes, Strontium isotopes, Iron Age, Central Europe, material culture, human remains