Life, Death and Linguistics in the Iron Age

Life, Death etc ...
Ryton-on-Dunsmore
Iron Age Daily Life: Agriculture
Quern, sickles, ploughshare (right middle)
Evidence from carbonised grain, and, pollen
Emmer wheat
Spelt
Bread Wheat
Barley
Millet
Beans
Peas
Lentils
Grain storage
Grain processed in various stages:
Heating
Beating
WinnowingStorage pits, usually 1-2 m deep (and up to 3 m), holding1.5 tonnes(Tacitus and Pliny)Grain at the seal germinates and stops germination.
Iron Age Daily Life: Blacksmith
Wooden bowls and vessels
Iron Age Daily Life; Pottery
Lifestock
Iron Age Daily Life: Changes?
Iron Age Daily Life: Textiles
Pre-Iron Age and Iron Age
Broadly similar, culturally and in terms of technology (with the addition of iron).
Many tools are the same.
Social organisation may have not been significantly different.
Should we rely on the classical authors to provide further illustration of the lifestyles of Iron Age peoples?
Are they relevant to Ireland??
Can linguistics help us here?
Language
There are various arguments about the development of Celtic languages.
It is now recognised that the difficulty with plotting the evolution of any language is that they rarely follow strict rules.
In Ireland, after the 5th century AD, it is possible to spot how new words enter the language and see what was introduced, culturally.
These loanwords represent the aspects of the archaeological evidence that are easiest to interpret.

Latin loan-words
As found in Old Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx and English
Celtic languages
Branch of the Indo-European group of languages.
Usually divided into four sub-groups.


Celtic languages
The division occured (depending on your favourite sources) at 4700-1700 BC or 1200-800 BC.


Celtic languages
Gaulish and related languages Lepontic, Noric, and Galatian. These were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from Belgium to northern Italy.


Celtic languages
Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula in the areas of modern Northern Portugal, and Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Aragón, and León in Spain. Lusitanian may also have been a Celtic language.

Celtic languages
Goidelic, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. At one time there were Irish on the coast of southwest England and on the coast of north and south Wales.

Celtic languages
Brythonic (also called British or Brittonic), including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, the hypothetical ‘Ivernic’, and possibly also Pictish. There may have been a Brythonic language in the Isle of Man before 9th century AD. However, Pictish may not be Indo-European and ‘Ivernic’ may actually be ‘Goidelic’.
Celtic languages
In several characteristics they resemble some non-Indo-European languages. These include:
absence of a present participle (e.g. talking) and the use instead of a verbal noun (found also in Egyptian and Berber)
the frequent expression of agency by means of an impersonal passive construction (e.g. it is said) instead of by a verbal subject in the nominative case (as in Egyptian, Berber, Basque, and some Caucasian and Eskimo languages)
positioning of the verb at the beginning of a sentence (typical of Egyptian and Berber)
Substrate analysis in North-Alpine Europe
Non-Indo-European features in Indo-European languages can be explained by substrate features, e.g., if we take the vocabulary of Celtic languages they are Indo-European, but the syntax, the way sentences are formed and the technical aspects of the languages are non-Indo-European.

Some people suggest that there were only two language families in Europe before Indo-European expansion; some features can be traced because there are direct descendants of these proto-languages.
Before the spread of Indo-European languages across Western Europe
Non-Indo-European languages present in Western Europe 2000 years ago (or before) are supposed to have preceded the spread of Indo-European languages (except Phoenician settlements): Basque, Iberian, Ligurian, Tartessian, ...

There is only indirect evidence for these, because first evidence of the presence of Basque is relatively recent (2000 years ago).


Non-Indo-European languages in Europe after last Ice-Age (after Venneman 2003)

Vasconic (VH)

Semitidic
Pictish: Inscriptions and placenames (e.g. Pit -, as in Pittodrie)
Aboyne (Ogham inscription)
‘nehhtvrobbaccennevv maqqotalluorrh’
Nechtan (nehht)
son of Talorc (maqqotalluorrh)
Maqqo (mac in Irish)…talluorrh (Talorc)
What does ‘vrobbaccennevv’ mean?


Pictish: Inscriptions and placenames (e.g. Pit -, as in Pittodrie)
Bressay: ‘crroscc:nahhtvvddadds:dattr:ann bennises:meqqddrroann’ (meggddrroan is taken to be ‘... son of Drostan’)
Lunnasting: ‘ettecuhetts:ahehhttannn:hccvvevv:nehhtons’ also contains ‘nehht’ (Nechtan)
Despite being able to read some parts, most of the text is indecipherable.


The VH and genetic studies showing post-glacial colonisation of Europe(Torroni et al 1998, 2001)
Vasconic expansion would have followed the repopulation of Europe by Vasconic people leaving the Aquitanian-Iberian refugium after the last ice-age (i.e. where the Basque language survived)
(from Venneman 2003)
DNA mapping (haplogroup R1b)
Linguistic arguments for the VH (Vasconic)
Visegimal counting in some Romance, Celtic and Germanic languages, i.e. four score for 80, quatre-vingts in French (four 20s), daichead in Irish (two 20s).
First syllable accent innovation in Germanic, Celtic and Italic languages.
River-names of North-Alpine Europe with Vasconic roots (is-, ur-, aran-, -alde) and morphems (-a); + agglutinative morphology.
Etymologies of non-IE words found in IE languages.
Venneman
Venneman’s work is not univerally accepted, particularly his reconstructed Vasconic and Semitidic groups (and that Pictish was Semitic).
However, the substrate of the Celtic languages is real.
If there is a pre-Indo-European substrate which appears to have its closest relatives in North Africa, should we look there for our best parallels for the cultures to illustrate prehistory including the Iron Age?
Late Examples?
What other influences are present in this late art style?
The carpet page on the right is from the Abbasid Qu’ran which is 9th century in date.
The Book of Durrow is 7th century.
Late Examples
The cross depicted on a carpet page on the right is from the Harklean Gospel Book, a 10th century copy of a 7th century version of the Syriac Gospels.
This is the same date as the Books of Durrow and Kells.
Beyond the Celts
These two spirals are from Newgrange and Tassili in Algeria.
North African Influence?
The cross on the left is a Coptic (North African) leather cross.
The cross on the right is from Fahan Mura in County Donegal.
It is assumed that this is Coptic influence on Irish Christianity.
Are these actually LATE examples.
Atlantean (Bob Quinn)

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=uI-LFQeKkUg

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Npx-oVgnOGs

Typical Farm
Villages: Biskupin, Poland (700-400 BC)
Biskupin
Fürstensitze: ‘Royal Sites’
There are a handful of significant sites which are associated with princely burials or exotic goods:
Hochdorf
Heuneburg
Glauberg
Vix
Magdalenenberg
This has influenced interpretation in Ireland (Tara, Navan Fort etc).

Hallstatt, Austria



Glauberg
Sandstone statue, or stele, fully preserved except for its feet (the type of sandstone is available within a few kilometres of Glauberg).
Much detail is clearly visible: his trousers, composite armour tunic, wooden shield and a typical La Tène sword hanging from his right side.
Glauberg
He wears a torc with three pendants, remarkably similar to the one from the chamber in mound 1, several rings on both arms and one on the right hand.
Glauberg
On his head, he wears a La Tene helmet crowned by two protrusions, resembling the shape of a mistletoe leaf. Such headdresses are also known from a handful of contemporary sculptures.
If mistletoe held a magical or religious significance, it could indicate that the warrior depicted also played the role of a priest.
Fragments of three similar statues were also discovered in the area. It is suggested that all four statues once stood in the rectangular enclosure.








The Chamber








1879 Plan (Kleinaspergle)



Hochdorf
Excavation of a barrow revealed a chamber containing a man of 40 years old who had been laid out on a bronze couch.
He had been buried with a gold-plated torc on his neck, a bracelet on his right arm, and most notably, thin embossed gold plaques were on his now-disintigrated shoes.
At the foot of the couch was a large cauldron decorated with three lions around the brim.
The east side of the tomb contained a four-wheeled wagon holding a set of bronze dishes for nine people.
At 6 ft 2 in (187 cm) he was quite tall.









Some functional objects were present



Hochdorf
Arrangement of the burial

HeuneburgDanube300x150 m plateauseveral phasesbeginning unorganised
Heuneburg: Later ‘planned’ layout

Murus GallicusWestern La Tene Zone