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conversations.value: a description for a book titled The European Iron Age about European, Iron, strong>'The with the genre: New, Used & Rental Textbooks, Humanities
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conversations.value: <strong>'The strength of </strong><em>The European Iron Age</em><strong> is that the author manages to present a broad view of Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan and Roman civilizations of the era alongside the central European Iron Age cultures... This is one of the rare books which succeeds in concisely covering an exceptionally wide scope without getting bogged down in the details.'</strong> - <em>At the Edge</em>
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conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
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conversations.value: <strong>'The strength of </strong><em>The European Iron Age</em><strong> is that the author manages to present a broad view of Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan and Roman civilizations of the era alongside the central European Iron Age cultures... This is one of the rare books which succeeds in concisely covering an exceptionally wide scope without getting bogged down in the details.
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conversations.value: the first four paragraphs for this book
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conversations.value: The European Iron Age
  Mont Beuvray was clearly chosen for its defensive qualities rather than any other reason such as relationship to trade routes, raw resources or agricultural land. This is true of many oppida—even those on trade routes tend to be on inaccessible hills. Only rarely is defensibility combined with accessibility, for instance islands in rivers (Paris, Breisach) or in river loops (Besançon), which tend to be the sites that still remain in use. The oppida are thus sites which have been deliberately implanted, established as an act of deliberate policy, and not as a process of natural accretion as in Greece and Tuscany.
  In some cases we can identify undefended lowlying settlements which were abandoned in favour of the defended sites, and which were about the same size as their successors. Levroux we have already mentioned—the town was transferred to a hill-top only two kilometres away. The same happened at Basel and Breisach on the Rhine, but in both cases the earlier lowland sites had themselves only been in existence for a generation or two before their abandonment, and hardly started much before the beginning of La Tène D. These are relatively small sites, and the norm, especially for the larger oppida such as Mont Beuvray, was for a number of different settlements to combine in constructing the oppidum. So far, however, this has only been clearly identified in the Auvergne, where Aulnat was abandoned at the time of the foundation of the oppidum of Gergovie. Aulnat was a settlement of about 7ha, Gergovie 150ha.
  At Manching all the buildings are of timber, and this is apparently true of pre-conquest sites in Gaul as well, though oppida that continued in occupation in the Roman period were given stone buildings within a generation or two. Unlike the earlier hillforts, which usually contained only a limited range of house types, the oppida show enormous variation in size and shape, suggesting economic and social complexity. Occasionally there is a rectilinear planned layout of streets, as at Villeneuve-St-Germain near Soissons in northern France. More usual is an irregular layout, with small houses constructed along terraces cut into the hillside. The overall pattern in principle resembles that of the classical cities, with small workshops densely packed along the major thoroughfares, and higher class residences in the more secluded fringes. One feature that is not obviously apparent is public buildings, though we know these must have existed as Caesar mentions 'senates' and 'market-places'.
  The 'workshops' are small rectangular buildings, usually no more than 4×6m in size, presumably used for both work and habitation. Large buildings also are found—some up to 30m long at Manching may be warehouses or barns—but it is difficult to work out functions of buildings as stratified deposits are usually absent, and several phases of activity may be jumbled together in the top soil. The upper-class dwellings are large wooden buildings, with a wooden palisade or fence forming a courtyard around them. Unlike their classical counterparts, these courtyard households engaged in industrial activities such as bronze and iron working, or coin manufacture, as though some industrial production was under direct upper-class control. Distributions of tools and industrial debris at Manching suggests specific industries may have had their own areas within the town. One street for instance has a high concentration of needles and other items associated with textiles, while the usually ubiquitous traces of metal working are absent. It is possible that some form of craftsmen's guild system may have been operating.
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conversations.value: four more paragraphs
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conversations.value: The Gallo-Belgic pottery industry appears around 15 BC, with centres of production on the lower and middle Rhine, the Mosel and northern France. The arrival of the Roman army on the Rhine frontier at this time is certainly closely connected. The precise origins of the industry are still unknown, but it arrived fully developed. It certainly did not originate from the local late La Tène pottery industry, and an origin somewhere in central France is most likely.
  Platters were unknown in late La Tène contexts, except as imitations of Mediterranean types, and these Gallo-Belgic platters are mainly imitations of Campanian and Arretine samian forms.
  The earliest occurrence of the Gallo-Belgic types is on the forts of the Rhineland such as Haltern or Oberaden, founded during the campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius, but they also occur in native contexts, such as the rich cremation burials from Goeblingen-Nospelt in Luxembourg. They were extensively traded along the Rhine, reaching Britain around the turn of the millennium. By about AD 10–20 workshops had been set up in England, mainly in the Colchester area, perhaps under royal patronage, though it is still difficult to distinguish imports from native production. Certainly of local production are the distinctive butt-beakers, Camulodunum 113 (a), which were extensively traded over southern and eastern England. The Gallo-Belgic industry continued until about AD 60–70.
  The Rhineland influence is most clearly visible in the pottery, the unusual 'Gallo-Belgic' industry which produced plates imitating Campanian and Arretine wares (black slipped 'terra nigra' and red slipped 'terra rubra'), fine rouletted beakers (butt beakers, girth beakers), and various flagons and flasks all in the Graeco-Roman tradition. The plates often bear the stamps of the potters, and show links with the Mosel, and especially Bavai, a major production centre. Colchester started producing its own versions made by potters doubtless brought in under royal patronage, and their wares reached as far as the Humber and central Hampshire. Amphorae too were imported in large quantities, containing not only wine, but olive oil, and fish paste from southern Spain. Arretine red-gloss wares, which had by now replaced the black Campanian vessels, are also not uncommon at Colchester, but, they were increasingly replaced by the developing samian industry of southern France. Colchester was the main, perhaps the only port for this trade in the later periods, and it may well have been 'administered trade' under direct royal control. Not surprisingly British exports on the Rhine are rare, but not unknown, and include enamelled harness equipment from Paillart (Oise), and a bronze mirror from a burial at Nijmegen.
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conversations.value: the last four paragraphs
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conversations.value: For early Rome there is a series of monographs by E.Gjerstad, though he places too much ethnic significance on pottery styles. For an introduction there is:
  There is no general source dealing with Hallstatt C, only a number of regional studies and site reports, some of which are quoted here:
  One of the most provocative and stimulating essays on Hallstatt D, but one with which I do not totally agree is:
  An article suggesting the Roman expansion was limited by the low level of native social organisation: