by Sebastian Becker (Sebastian.Becker@oeaw.ac.at)
7-8 November 2016, McDonald Institute for
Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
For two days in November, the Department of
Archaeology, University of Cambridge, once again became a hub for Iron Age
scholars from across Europe. The occasion was a workshop on pre-Roman urbanism
in Germany, forming part of a recent series of Iron Age conferences, organised
by Simon Stoddart (University of Cambridge). It was facilitated through the
financial support of both the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
The workshop brought together 15 scholars,
mostly from Germany, some from the UK and Eastern Europe, to discuss one of the
most topical issues in European Iron Age archaeology: the origins and nature of
pre-Roman urbanism in Southern Germany. That region is particularly significant
in Iron Age studies, for its archaeological record provides unique insights
into the development of urbanism north of the Alps. At the same time, summary
papers from Eastern Europe and Britain made it possible to develop a contextual
perspective, setting the archaeology of Southern Germany in its European
context.
Studying Urbanism in First Millennium BC
Germany followed a thematic structure. There were four sessions, each dealing
with a particular aspect of Iron Age urbanism, spread over two days. One of the
principal strength of the workshop was the generous amount of time allocated to
discussion. Thus each paper was followed by a 15 minute slot devoted to
Q&As, and the workshop as whole was concluded by an approximately 90 minute
discussion, addressing some of the main issues raised over the course its two
days.
Following a brief introduction by Simon
Stoddart, the first session, Regional Differences, provided a comparative
perspective on some of the earliest and later manifestations of Iron Age
urbanism in Southern Germany. Two
different chronological horizons were of particular relevance.
In his paper “Early Iron Age Fürstensitze:
Some Thoughts on a Not-So-Uniform Phenomenon” Axel G. Posluschny (Glauberg,
Research Centre) focused on the Fürstensitz (princely site) phenomenon, a
characteristic of the (later) Early Iron Age. His comprehensive analysis of
so-called princely sites suggests that archaeology has yet a long way to go to
understand truly their original significance.
That is particularly obvious from a landscape approach. Using various
analytical tools, such as viewshed analyses, Posluschny was able to show that
many classic Fürstensitze, such as the Heuneburg or the Glauberg, may have had
a central meaning but not necessarily a central function. While the visibility
of these sites was not as high as one might typically expect of an urban site,
they were clearly important places as suggested by their specialised
architecture and evidence of interregional contacts. Posluschny’s paper offers
a cautionary tale that Fürstensitze are indeed a complex social phenomenon that
does not easily fit any a priori categories. In the light of such stimulating
new research, a checklist approach based on Wolfgang Kimmig’s original
definition of Fürstensitze is clearly unsatisfactory, both methodologically and
interpretively.
The definitional complexity surrounding
Iron Age urbanism also stood out in Caroline von Nicolai’s (Ludwig-Maximilian
University of Munich) paper “Urbanism of the Oppida”, focusing on the Late Iron
Age. Oppida, that is, settlements with seemingly urban characteristics, were
the key theme of her presentation. She began by reviewing a number of
theoretical approaches to defining urbanism, highlighting the difficulties of
finding a comprehensive, universally applicable definition. That problem is
particularly acute in the context of oppida sites from Bavaria. Thus only the
site of Manching seems to evince all characteristics of a truly urban site,
while others, such as Kelheim, may feature a more selective range. In fact, von
Nicolai’s discussion showed that there is a significant degree of variability
between all these sites, and that, just like the in case of the earlier
Fürstensitze, it is very difficult to find a common denominator. Again the
complexity of the evidence stood out as a central theme.
The first session was concluded by an
elegant attempt to interpret some of the potential causes underlying this
complexity. In his paper “Ritual, Society and Settlement Structure: Driving
forces of urbanisation during the 2nd and 1st century BC” Gerd Stegmaier
(Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen) highlighted the essential differences and
complementary functions of two types of site. Viereckschanzen, square or
rectilinear enclosures, probably functioned as fortified farmsteads where local
Late Iron Age elites resided. In that way, the significance of such sites may
have been one of separation, dividing the landscape into different territories.
By contrast, oppida may have assumed a more integrative role, as supra-regional
and multi-functional centres that were bound up in a web of local and
long-stance connections. Thus, Stegmaier’s paper illustrated the potential role
of contrasting socio-political and economic factors in causing some of the
variability encountered in the archaeological record.
Key-extra-urban resources, the second
session, took up where the previous one left off. Thus Günther Wieland’s (State
Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments, Baden-Wuerttemberg) paper
“The rural contribution to urbanism during the 2nd and 1st century BC: Rural
settlement and Viereckschanzen” took an in-depth look at the significance of Viereckschanzen,
focusing, in particular, on their socio-economic functions within a wider
landscape. Again the relationship between these rural settlements and oppida
emerged as an important theme. Drawing on the results of ongoing research,
Wieland showed that Viereckschanzen may have been multifunctional sites,
assuming the role of a fortified enclosure, a central place and that of a
settlement. In the light of that, should Viereckschanzen be understood as
small-scale versions of oppida? And how to interpret cases in which several
such sites appear in direct vicinity to another? These are questions for which
there are currently no answers, but Wieland’s work is getting a step closer to
finding them.
The relationship between centralised/urban
sites and their hinterland was also a key issue in Ines Balzer’s (German
Archaeological Institute, Rome) talk “Burial Mounds and Settlements: The
funerary contribution to urbanism”. She discussed it through an analysis of the
connections that may have existed between burial mounds and settlements. For
Southern Germany, she identified four main types, spanning the phases Ha C to
Lt A/B. Certain types of objects, such as Mediterranean imports, were
occasionally associated with both tumuli and settlements; in some cases, there
was a visual relationship between hilltop settlements and burial mounds; some
Early Iron Age tumuli occasionally became part of early La Tène settlements;
finally, as a sort of variation of the previous pattern, fences and enclosures
were sometimes used to integrate burial mounds within a wider settlement area.
Balzer’s paper stands out as a lucid attempt to interpret two fundamental
categories of archaeological evidence holistically, rather than treating them
separately as is it is so often done in the archaeological literature.
A lively and engaging discussion ended the
first day of the workshop. It was agreed that the relationship between
central/urban sites and their hinterland needs further research, particularly
in terms of landscape surveys and more fieldwork. The importance of that is
quite obvious. If certain sites are said to be central or, indeed, urban, then
that interpretation will be only accurate to the extent that the whole spectrum
of settlement variability for any one region is known. The new work on
Viereckschanzen, as discussed by Wieland, demonstrates this quite well. Are
these multifunctional sites on par with central/urban settlements? And what was
their significance in the late Iron Age settlement system? Again more research
in the field is needed to get to terms with such questions. Finally, Colin
Haselgrove raised a critique that in some ways is specific to Iron Age
archaeology, but in others may apply to prehistoric archaeology in general. Are
our attempts to identify evidence for Iron Age urbanism not always predisposed
to finding a particular type of society, implicitly modelled around the notion
of a medieval feudal system? It is important to be aware of such biases, lest
archaeological interpretation becomes a rather tautological exercise.
The second day of the workshop began with
two papers, highlighting particular themes in the interpretation of Iron Age
urban sites.
That computing technologies and statistical
modelling have a role to play in Iron Age archaeology was demonstrated by
Oliver Nakoinz’s (Christian-Albrechts University, Kiel) paper “Quantifying Iron
Age urbanism (density and distance)”. He
introduced an interaction model according to which a city is an agglomeration
of people able to adapt to changing conditions. Following that scheme, the
Heuneburg, for instance, was not a city. While it certainly housed an
agglomeration of people, it seems to have lacked the adaptive capacities that
qualify that type of site. That is suggested by the distinctive hiatus of settlement
activity, following a period of climate change during phases Ha D1 to Ha D2. It
was at this time that settlement took place at other areas in the region,
adding yet another layer of complexity to the relationship between
central/urban sites and their hinterland.
In her comprehensive paper “Not built in a
day: The quality of Iron Age Urbanism by comparison with Athens and Rome” Katja
Winger (Freie Universität Berlin) provided a comparative perspective on
processes of urbanisation in Central Europe and the Mediterranean. That
comparison was particularly pertinent as evidence from this latter region
usually informed interpretations of Iron Age urbanism further west. Winger
showed that while there do appear to be certain similarities between sites from
both regions, there is also a crucial difference. On the whole, centralised
sites in Southern Germany existed for much briefer periods than those in the
Mediterranean. Whether that situation is due to a lack of sufficient research
in the Mediterranean or indeed indicative of a genuine process, remains an open
question. What Winger’s paper showed, however, is that our understanding of
Iron Age urbanism in any one region may greatly benefit from a geographically
large-scale, comparative point of view.
The last session of the workshop
demonstrated that Iron Age urbanism is also on the agenda of the next
generation of archaeologists. Three young scholars gave short papers on their
stimulating research within this field, offering perspectives from Eastern
Europe and Britain. It is also worth mentioning that two of them hold a PhD in
archaeology from Cambridge, and the third is currently working towards one.
Again the role of Cambridge as a new hub for innovative Iron Age studies is
particularly noticeable her, and much of it is thanks to the continued effort
of Simon Stoddart.
Cătălin Popa (Leiden University) showed
that human responses to the natural environment can play a fundamental role in
shaping the nature of urban processes. In focusing on the area of the Lower
Danube and Eastern Carpathian Basin, he suggested that two settlement types may
have been in place. One was associated with the mountainous topography of the
Eastern Carpathians and characterised by highly defended sites, such as
Sarmizegetusa. That pattern contrasts with sites outside the Carpathian Basin
which were always situated on the bank of major rivers, but do not seem to have
featured the same scale of defensive installations. The significance of these
sites seems to have hinged on their interregional connectivity, as suggested by
the large quantities of Roman and Greek ceramics found among their remains.
Popa’s notion of two distinct urban models, one Carpathian, the other
extra-Carpathian, has important interpretive implications, for it places
variability in the archaeological record in relation to human decisions within
a wider social and natural landscape.
Shifting the geographical focus further
south, Bela Dimova (Sofia) reviewed evidence for urbanism in Iron Age Thrace.
Her holistic and critical reassessment of the material was particularly
relevant, for Iron Age Thrace was often seen as but a colonial extension of
Greece. Instead, Dimova’s paper suggested a complex process of entanglement.
Thus Thracian sites certainly show connections with centres in Greece in terms
of their material culture and certain aspects of their layout and architecture,
but not each site features the full suite of all possible connections. There
appears to have been an element of cultural selectivity. Another crucial
observation is that Thracian sites existed over a much shorter sequence than
comparable centres in Greece, recalling elements of Katja Winger’s paper.
The notion that the adoption of urbanism
depends on systems of cultural beliefs as much as it does on infrastructural
hardware, was addressed in Ethan Aines (University of Cambridge) paper on the
Iron Age of eastern England. He suggested that pre-Roman Iron Age communities
probably understood urbanism as a kind of cultural ideal, but not necessarily
as an essential requirement, to be adopted in all its facets. That may be
reflected in the adoption of new ways of dressing, dining, and drinking, and
may not always have an archaeological fallout in terms of typical urban sites.
In that sense, archaeologists may need to broaden their understanding of
urbanism, for it may be more about ways of living and thinking than
establishing certain kinds of sites.
A workshop of this intellectual calibre
would have not been complete without a summary discussion by some leading
scholars in the field. The last session invited five well-known Iron Age
archaeologists to reflect on what was said over the course of the two days.
Some very interesting perspectives emerged.
Emmanuel Fernandez-Götz’ (University of
Edinburgh) discussion emphasised the importance of recognising the intrinsic
diversity of Iron urbanism in the archaeological record. A means of
investigating its material correlates may be the concept of low-density
urbanism, originally developed by Roland Fletcher in a New World context. In
addition, archaeologists may be advised to reflect on the significance of empty
spaces, for they may have assumed an important role in the transmission of
power and the control of resources.
That our reconstructions of urban processes
are based on just a small set of data came out in Colin Haselgrove’s
(University of Leicester) reflections that incompleteness may have serious
implications for archaeological interpretations. More surveys and excavations
are needed to mitigate against that bias.
Anthony Snodgrass (University of Cambridge)
returned to an issue that had emerged throughout the workshop: urbanism may be
as much about cultural ideas, as it is about certain infrastructural
developments. From that perspective, Southern Germany may have been area where
the notion of urbanism never really gained the same ideological currency as in
the Mediterranean. Communities adopted it, but they did so selectively.
Penultimately, Simon Stoddart (University
of Cambridge) provided a ‘Southern Perspective’ on two key issues raised during
the workshop. The temporality of urban settlements in Southern Germany is
overall quite different from that further south, in areas such as Etruria. The
comparably short-lived nature of urban sites north of the Alps still requires
further explanation. At the same time, the social organisation underlying the
adoption and development of urbanism in that area is still rather opaque. Do we
need to think more about concepts such as heterarchy to make sense of urbanism?
What was the role of different social formations, such as descent groups, in
the course of Iron Age urbanism? Again, a comparative approach, highlighting
the differences and similarities between urban sites in the Mediterranean and
those further north, may be a way of addressing these questions.
Finally, Peter Wells, in anticipation of
his updated delivery of his Prehistoric Society Europa lecture earlier in the
year, and which he also gave to a Cambridge audience the following day,
outlined how much ideas of the Iron Age have advanced over the last few
decades.
In conclusion, from my perspective,
Studying Urbanism in First Millennium BC Germany was a thorough success. I
cannot recall having been at many workshops with the same level of intellectual
endeavour and reflectivity. That could not have happened without the
contribution of a number of very passionate scholars. The format of the
workshop allowed for stimulating discussions which really brought out the
importance of studying early forms of urban life. But, on a personal level, the
best measure for the success of the workshop is that it left me thinking. As I
was heading back to London, I felt strangely aware of how pervasive urbanism is
in our daily lives. Can archaeology help us understand that influence? Having
attended this workshop, I believe it can.
Acknowledgements
The organisers (Ethan Aines and Simon
Stoddart) are grateful to the DAAD Cambridge hub which supported the workshop, with
the additional support of the McDonald Institute which provided the dinner in
Magdalene College. It is planned to publish versions of the delivered papers online
and open access, as part of the ongoing expansion of the McDonald Institute
publications programme.
More details of the Cambridge
DAAD hub can be found here:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/daad/workshops/studying-urbanism-in-first-millennium-bc-iron-age-germany
Conference Participants outside the McDonald Institute in Cambridge (Photo © Simon Stoddart)
Go back to top