The Iron Age Celts

The readings for the course are multidisciplinary, from the fields of archaeology, art history, ancient history, philology, philosophy, natural sciences, gender studies, politics, etc. There will be a LOT! Expect to do a full week's worth of reading, so don't put it off until Wednesday night....

We will not go over the readings in detail in class. Instead, you will be expected to ask intelligent questions about them and to synthesize what you learned into class discussions.

5/1: Email me at c.m.witt@gmail.com if I don't respond to your @mail. Don't forget to meet (or at least e-mail/chat) with Enrique! And please follow the paper guidelines. Do not neglect to proofread your paper -- legibility counts.
Light reading this week to give you time to work on those papers!
Read in Cunliffe:  Ch. 11-14
Read short but impassioned selection from The Atlantic Celts by Simon James, 1999 (on eReserves).
Read in Collis: Ch. 9-11 (very short).  A very useful review, and a good way for you to find out where you stand on the issue of Celts: yes or no?

4/24: Keep those rewrites and works in progress coming! Use c.m.witt@gmail.com if I don't respond to your mail. And please meet (or at least e-mail/chat) with Enrique!
Today we will take a wild journey around the peripheral "Celtic" areas.
Read in Kruta: "The Celts in Italy," "The Transpadane Celts," "The Carpathian Basin," "The Taurisci,""The Scordisci," "The Celts of the Iberian Peninsula," "Armorica" -- most of these are short & sweet.  You do NOT have to memorize any unpronounceable  or unspellable names, unless they are mentioned multiple times.
Read in Cunliffe:  Ch. 7, 8, 9
Read in Collis: Ch.  6, "Locating the Celts" and Ch. 8, "Archaeology of the Celts"
Go to eKeltoi: Volume 6 and read in whatever form you prefer: "The Celts in Iberia: An Overview" by Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero
Review Wells, Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians if you need to

4/17: Keep those rewrites and works in progress coming!
Read in Megaws:  Ch. 6 and review Ch. 8
Read in Cunliffe:  Ch. 12.
Read  in Kruta: "The Island Celts," "Hillforts," "The Arras Culture" and "The Belgae in Britain" (very short)
Read in Collis: Ch. 2, "The Peopling of the West" -- we will be reading more in Collis in the next 2 weeks
Read on eReserves: selection from Simon James, "The Atlantic Celts"
Read in The Celtic World: "The Celtic Britons under Rome" and "Ireland: a world without Romans"
Optional: Read the Confession of St Patrick

4/10: Works-in-progress due today!  Please e-mail me or hand in *at least* an opening paragraph and outline, plus a short list of principal bibliography.
We will have a guest speaker, Prof. Andrew Riggsby, an expert on late Republican Rome, Cicero and Caesar, come and talk to us about Caesar's Gauls.  Please be sure to read the ethnography section of Caesar starting at Book 6.11 on eReserves/Roman or at Wikisource
Read in Cunliffe: Ch. 11.
Read in Kruta: "The Oppida of the Second and First Centuries BC," "Celtic Society in the First Century BC," "The Romanization of Gaul"
Review in Rankin: Ch. 6
Read in The Celtic World: "The First Towns," on eRes

4/3: Read in Freeman the chapter on Religion (33 ff) -- (copy on eReserves)
Read in Kruta: "Celtic Religion" and "Celtic Religion and Mythology"
Read in Cunliffe Ch. 10
Read from Archaeology 2001 vol 54/2: Jean-Louis Brunaux on Gallic Blood (oooh ...) re: the sanctuaries at Gournay-sur-Aronde and Ribemont-sur-Ancre
Study the oppidum, esp. the sanctuaries and sculptures, at Entremont: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/entremont/en/index2.html
Read in The Celtic World: "The Gods and the Supernatural,"  "Ritual and the Druids," and "Sanctuaries and Sacred Places"
Read in Rankin Ch. 14 with a large grain of salt, and be ready to formulate your thoughts about "Druids"
[Note: I have placed a personal copy of M. Green, ed., The Celtic World, on reserve in the Classics Library, just at the end of the hall in WAG.]

3/27: Review last week's readings ... and review for map quiz and terms & concepts quiz ...
Read in The Celtic World:  "Seafaring," "Coinage," and "Trade and Exchange"
Read in Kruta: "The Scordisci," "Coinage," "Celtic Writing"
Read in Megaws: pp. 177-187.
Please come up with your paper topic! see assignment.

3/20: NOW the Creative Paper is due. You can  e-mail it, hand it in, perform it ...
We will discuss two separate but related issues this week. 
1.  In discussing funerary finds, we have concentrated mainly on human remains and a limited class of objects; today we will look at a broader spectrum of craft production. In addition, we will discuss various aspects of interpretation of works of "Celtic" art.
Read in Kruta: "The Celts and their Gold," "Agriculture," and "Handicrafts."
Read in The Celtic World: "Appearance, Life and Leisure"
Read in Megaws Chapters 4-5 to p. 177.
Read critically Otto-Herman Frey, "A New Approach" (on eReserves)

2.  Interpreting various kinds of finds -- not solely the "greatest hits" of "Celtic" art, but also the more mundane works of craftspeople and artisans, within their contexts and distributions, and of course together with the imports, we attempt to arrive at a reconstruction of Iron Age "Celtic" socio-economic structure ...
Read in Cunliffe Ch. 6 and review 5.
Read selections from Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State, B. Arnold and D.B. Gibson, eds, 1995 (on eReserves).
Review P. Wells, Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians.
Read in The Celtic World: "Power, Politics and Status," "Rural Life and Farming,"  and "Resources and Industry."
[Note: I have placed a personal copy of M. Green, ed., The Celtic World, on reserve in the Classics Library, just at the end of the hall in WAG.]

3/6: By popular request -- Creative Paper due 3/20, after Spring Break.  Please note that you want to be thinking about a topic for your final research paper REALLY SOON so you can start doing some research.  Creative paper: full creative leeway, but stick to the "Celtic" facts. Period: within the scope of this course (pre-Christian). Length: as long as it needs to be. More info here.
Read Bettina Arnold's short article on "'Honorary Males' or Women of Substance? Gender, Status and Power in Iron-Age Europe" (on eReserves in Cultural).
Read Bettina Arnold's short article on "Power Drinking in Iron Age Europe" and John Collis's response in British Archaeology, 2001. (This is a reputable journal).
Read my short essay on drinking -- sorry to subject you to it, but most of the sources are in German.
As a special treat, read "MacDatho's Pig" at Vassar (early Irish, Ulster Cycle -- it takes place in Leinster but features the rival groups of Ulster/Ulaid and Connaught) -- includes the original emended text, if you want to give it a whirl. You will encounter old friends like Leary (Leogaire), Conall Cernach, Conchobar, and others at  "Bricriu's Feast" (on eReserves in Cultural). Think about the social and political aspects and roles  of the feast, as well as any insight these literary works might give into the meaning of feasting. Have fun! 

Anthropologists: A good but dense resource is the article by Michael Dietler in Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power. 2001 -- GT 3930 F4 2001 PCL Stacks

2/28: We will go into greater detail on arms, armor and all things military, as y'all requested ...
Read: in Cunliffe, Ch. 5.   In Kruta, "The Celts and their Movements in the Third Century B.C.," "Weaponry" and "Mercenary Activity."
In Megaw, Ch. 3.  Review on eReserves: "The Army, Weapons and Fighting" and "Fortifications and defenses," plus read the handy summary "The Celts in Classical Eyes," from Green, The Celtic World. 

2/21: Read Poppi's chapter from Kruta on the nature of the archaeological sources, pp. 39-49, a copy on  eReserves. Note:  Poppi's article is obviously painfully translated and should not serve as an example of model writing ...  This week we are talking in depth (hah) about burials. We have been talking about burials all this time, you say. This is true, but let us be sure that we define our terms and think about the interpretation of ancient burial in a differentiated manner. To that end, let us read the brilliant Mike Parker Pearson on The Archaeology of Death and Burial (on eReserves in the Archaeology folder) -- 2 very short chapters. MPP writes exceedingly clearly and well, and with no b.s.  Read Kruta 205-248, 313-338. Once you have finished, please review (ahem) your previous readings and put them into context. In Freeman, read the short selections on Women (copy on eReserves). 

2/14:  Happy Val's! bonus points: what's the ancient origin of Valentine's Day?
Readings: In Kruta, "The Princely Tombs of the Celts in the Middle Rhineland," "The Vix Settlement and the Tomb of the Princess," "Kleinaspergle near Asperg," "The Waldalgesheim Tomb," "The First Historical Expansion: Fourth Century BCE."  Ch. 13 in Rankin.  Read P. Wells, Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians (it's short) and really think about issues of identity in the kinds of societies we are looking at.

2/7: The fourth century is known as the time of the "migrations," and thus a period of militarization. We will delve into the classical sources, most of which are devoted to warfare. Note as you are reading that we have only the words of the enemies of the Celts. We will also engage with the archaeological finds pertaining to arms, armor and warfare. Read in Rankin chs 4, 6 and 5 (it makes more sense in that order, I find.)  Chapters 4 and 5 in Cunliffe; in Kruta, pp. 339 ff. "Weaponry." On eReserves: "The Army, Weapons and Fighting" and "Fortifications and defenses," both from Green.

1/31: Chapter 2 in Megaw, Chapters 1-2 in Cunliffe, the short essays in Kruta (remaining wary of typos): The Princely Tombs of Burgundy (116 ff) and The Celtic Princes of Hohenasperg (123 ff). Read Shefton: "Massalia and Colonization" on eReserves. Brian Shefton's thinking on the "colonization"/Hellenization of Europe has evolved since this article; it remains one of the best summations of the known material.
Read "The Celts Through Classical Eyes" (on eReserves & in Green).   If you are not purchasing P. Freeman, War, Women and Druids, now might be a good time to download the pdf in the "Cultural" folder.

1/24: Thoroughly read Megaw through p. 49. This is dense reading, but if you read it through once, taking lots of notes, and then go over Ch. 1 again, you will have a good basis. We will go into some of these finds in more depth later. Note: the Megaws are relatively level-headed, but not entirely uncontroversial.

Hint: If you have a terrible visual memory, you might want to start making database records or index cards for specific objects seen in class. Include all information gleaned from your reading. If you start now, you won't be overwhelmed.

In Cunliffe, Ch. 3 (pp. 39-67). Somewhat old-school, traditional in approach, but the facts are correct.
In Collis, Ch. 7 (pp. 133-160). Much very useful vocabulary here; basic concepts as well as material specific to Iron Age European archaeology
In Kruta, 80-102 (also on eRes as "Celtic Princes") Note that this volume is not translated well and is full of typos. Very old-school. But it has nice pictures ... Practice seeing!

If your grasp of modern European geography is not what it should be, make use of the maps provided on eReserves in the "Introductory" folder -- or any recent atlas -- and make sure you know where the major rivers, mountain ranges, and modern countries are located.