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A Hill-fort in Switzerland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Extract

The great cultural unit of the Hallstatt (A–;B) Period in southern Germany and its neighbourhood is now considered to be the cradle of the Celts. The latest discussion of the problem is that by P. Bosch-Gimpera. A special variety of this culture seems to be represented in the country lying between the Alps and the Jura, extending from the lake of Constance to the lakes of Savoy. It is found in the lake-dwellings which came to an abrupt end somewhere about 700–650 B.C. The top layer in many of these is marked by evidence of burning, indicating a catastrophe that must have been wide-spread and general. This type of habitation, once so prevalent, was never revived; there are no signs of it in the following period (Hallstatt C–D). From the Late Bronze Age onwards there was a continuous development in the lake-dwellings, whose last stage is called in Switzerland the Latest Bronze Age (contemporary with the Rhenish Hallstatt B).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1946

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References

1 Two Celtic waves in Spain, Sir John Rhys Memorial Lecture ; British Academy, London, 1939. See also Christopher Hawkes : ‘Problems of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age’ in Conference on the problems and prospects of European Archaeology, 1944. (Occasional Paper no. 6, Institute of Archaeology, Univ. of London, p. 53).

2 See the forthcoming vol. IV of the series, Monographien zur Urgeschichte der Schweiz : Das Wittnauer Horn in Kanton Aargau. Gerhard Bersu. 118 pages, 42 plates, 4 maps. Basel, 1945.

3 The Wittnauer Horn slingstones consist of carefully selected pebbles of diluvial origin and about the size of a child’s fist. They must have been collected in the river valley, as on the plateau they do not occur in sufficient numbers.

4 12th Research Report, Soc. of Antiquaries of London, 1943, pp. 48 ff.

5 Precisely similar house-platforms are to be seen on the shoulder of Hambledon Hill, Dorset, a hill-fort that may be contemporary with the Wittnauer Horn. See air-photo in Wessex from the Air, O.G.S.C.

6 The principle of building houses on platforms is of course one adopted in the lake-dwellings.