Pre-Roman Iron Age

Categories: Archaeological cultures | European archaeology | History of the Germanic peoples | Pre-Roman Iron Age

A map of the area covered by the Pre-Roman Iron Age, ca 500 BC-1 AD

The Pre-Roman Iron Age (ca 600 BC or 500 BC - ca 1 AD) designates the earliest part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia and North Germany, i.e. the first of three periods in Oscar Montelius’s chronology system. In the Scandinavian/North German cultural area the earliest iron objects have been recovered from sites [places and dates]]. Associated objects at the sites suggest that the Pre-Roman Iron Age evolved out of the Nordic Bronze Age, simply characterized by the acquisition of iron tools (the name is also applied to contemporary Britain, but at the moment this article follows the Montelian sense). The somewhat strange name of the period is due to that it was recognized for the first time by E. Vedel at certain Iron Age cemeteries on the Baltic island of Bornholm, where he could demonstrate that some graves belonged to a time prior to the period of considerable Roman influence in Northern Europe, which is consequently called the Roman Iron Age.

The culture covered by this term was most likely Proto-Germanic, and south of it was the Celtic La Tène culture, whose advanced iron-working technology exerted a considerable influence, when, around 600 BC northern people began to extract bog iron from the ore in peat bogs, a technology which they had acquired from their Central European neighbours. In the beginning, iron was valuable and was used for decoration. The oldest objects were needles, but edged tools, swords and sickles, are found as well. Bronze continued to be used during the whole period, but was mostly used for decoration.

The traditions were a continuation from the Nordic Bronze Age, but there were strong influences from the Hallstatt culture in Central Europe. Funerary practices continued the Bronze Age tradition of burning the corpses and placing the remains in urns, a characteristic of the Urnfield culture. During the previous centuries, influences from the Central European La Tène culture spread to Scandinavia from North-Western Germany and there are finds from this period from all the provinces of southern Scandinavia. Archaeologists have found swords, shieldbosses, spearheads, scissors, sickles, pincers, knives, needles, buckles, kettles, etc. from this time. Bronze continued to be used for torques and kettles, the style of which were a continuity from the bronze age. Some of the most prominent finds are the Gundestrup silver cauldron and the Dejbjerg wagons from Jutland, two four-wheeled wagons of wood with bronze parts.

The period began with a deteriorating climate[1][2][3][4][5][6], which caused a dramatic change in the flora and fauna[7]. In Scandinavia, this period is often called the Findless Age due to the lack of finds from this period. While the finds from Scandinavia are consistent with a loss of population, the southern part of the culture, the Jastorf culture, was in expansion southwards. It consequently appears that the climate change played an important role in the southward expansion of the Proto-Germanic tribes into continental Europe[8].

This warlike demic diffusion southwards is sometimes questioned by proponents of the peaceful cultural diffusion theory according to which all languages and archaeological cultures moved peacefully by the transmission of objects and ideas between geographically static populations (compare historian's fallacy and presentism, which are logical fallacies caused by projecting the modern scholar's mindset onto people living in different times and cultures). However, the Germanic tribes would not be known to history for being very peaceful, nor for being geographically static. This time was also the age of the Teutons and the Cimbri, whose migrations were little like cultural diffusion, and who were an example of what would follow in the later Roman Iron Age and Age of Migrations.

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Jastorf Culture

The Jastorf culture is an Iron Age material culture in northern Europe, dated from about 600 BC to 1. It is named after a site near the village of Jastorf, Lower Saxony (53°3′ N 10°36′ E). Its area was first delimited by the Weser in the West, the Aller in the South, and the Danish Islands in the North, but later it expanded southwards towards the Rhine and the Harz.

It evolved out of the Nordic Bronze Age, through influence from the Halstatt culture further south. It was part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the south Scandinavian cultures in the north were very similar to this culture.

The cultures of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and their predecessor the Nordic Bronze Age are sometimes hypothesized to be the origin of the Germanic languages. The geographical distribution of the Jastorf culture seems at least to have corresponded to the West Germanic languages. Its technology for gaining iron ore from local sources may have served as a driver for language spread.

It appears from historic sources that the Jastorf culture was not yet thoroughly Proto-Germanic. Several tribes from this culture, such as the Ambrones and even the more northerly Cimbri were partly or largely still Celtic.

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Pre-Roman Iron Age

Jastorf Culture

See also