Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State
In this collection, archaeologists, historians, geographers and language specialists reexamine the structure and political development of Celtic states scattered across present-day Europe. The main theoretical focus is on whether and when state-level complexity was attained in the different Celtic settlements. The contributors also discuss and evaluate the various methods for studying Celtic social systems: the historical textual studies, as opposed to the analysis of the archaeological record, and the use of regional comparisons.
- Examines the political systems of the Celts which previous publications have not dealt with
- Offers wide ranging and multidisciplinary focus
- Represents a controversial new wave of thinking in European archaeology and Celtic Studies
Reviews & endorsements
"This stimulating book deserves to be read widely outside of `Europeanist' circles." Bernard Wailes, American Anthropologist
Product details
February 1998Paperback
9780521585798
172 pages
235 × 191 × 9 mm
0.31kg
21 maps 1 table
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction: beyond the mists: forging an ethnological approach to Celtic studies Bettina Arnold, and D. Blair Gibson
- Part I. Celtic Political Systems: Research Paradigms:
- 2. From chiefdom to state organization in Celtic Europe Patrice Brun
- 3. Building an historical ecology of Gaulish polities Carole L. Crumley
- 4. The early Celts of west central Europe: the semantics of social structure Franz Fischer
- Part II. Recovering Iron Age Social Systems:
- 5. The material culture of social structure: rank and status in early Iron-Age Europe Bettina Arnold
- 6. The significance of major settlements in European Iron Age society Olivier Büchsenschütz
- 7. Early 'Celtic' socio-political relations: ideological representation and social competition in dynamic comparative perspective Michael Dietler
- Part III. The Question of Statehood in La Téne Europe:
- 8. States without centres? The Middle La Tène period in temperate Europe John Collis
- 9. Late Iron-Age society in Britain and north-east Europe: structural transformation or superficial change? Colin Haselgrove
- 10. Settlement and social systems at the end of the Iron Age Peter S. Wells
- Part IV. Evolution and Ethnohistory: the Protohistoric Polities of Gaul and the British Isles:
- 11. Modelling chiefdoms in the Scottish Highlands and islands prior to the '45 Robert A. Dodgshon
- 12. Caesar's perception of Gallic social structures Sean B. Dunham
- 13. Chiefdoms, confederacies, and statehood in early Ireland D. Blair Gibson
- 14. Clans are not primordial: pre-Viking Irish society and the modelling of pre-Roman societies in northern Europe Nerys Thomas Patterson.