Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State
Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State
D. Blair Gibson, University of California, Los Angeles
$46.00
USDIn this collection, archaeologists, historians, geographers and language specialists re-examine 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. Interweaving archaeological and textual evidence, the result is an interdisciplinary study of state formation never before attempted on such a wide scale which contributes to our understanding of social complexity in Celtic Europe, and, more generally, to the processes underlying social transformation.
- 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
Product details
March 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.
