A VOTIVE MODEL SHIELD FROM LANGLEY, OXFORDSHIRE

Summary. A miniature bronze oval shield was discovered probably in 1982 at Potters Hill Farm, Langley. The type of shield would accord well with a late Iron Age date, though full-size shields of this general form continued in use until after the Roman conquest. A number of other pre-Roman model shields from British contexts provide good parallels for the Langley model. A religious significance is argued for the object: other shield-models come from Iron Age sanctuaries and, indeed, the Langley model belongs to a multifarious range of miniature implements and weapons, many of which come from temple-sites or have other features indicative of a votive function. It seems probable that the Langley miniature shield was a votive object, perhaps offered to a divinity in a local shrine. If this is the case, it would have been an appropriate offering to a warrior-god.     

The widespread occurrence of Celtic field systems in the central part of the Netherlands

The detailed elevation model based on airborne laser altimetry (AHN) proved to be a reliable tool to detect well-developed Celtic field systems, characteristic arable plots of the Iron Age. They were detected in the central part of the Netherlands, where only a limited number of Celtic field systems have been recognized in the past. Most of these previously detected systems were identified in the northern part of the Netherlands or in the southern part, but not in this zone. About 1200 ha of well-developed systems could be identified by AHN in the central part of the Netherlands, of which only 136 ha were registered as an archaeological monument. Another 335 ha of archaeologically identified Celtic field systems were not accepted or recognized by AHN, because they were morphologically less well-developed. Most of the around 1050 ha new discoveries occur in rough vegetations and forested areas, and can hardly be identified with previously used geodetic methods and aerial photography. Less well-developed or preserved systems were even more extensive and remnants were traced as fossil arable layers below plaggen soils or on lower slopes incorporated in mediaeval reclamations. The newly identified Celtic field systems, therefore, can be considered as remnants of much larger areas once covered with these arable plots. In the central part of the Netherlands, the estimated area once covered was at least around 4500 ha, more than enough to supply 10,000 people with cereals. Well-developed Celtic field systems started to develop in the late Iron Age with formation intensifying during the early Roman Period. The central part of the Netherlands is situated just north of the river Rhine, the former boundary of the Roman Empire, the Limes. The newly discovered extent of Celtic field systems will have influenced the interaction between different cultures on the border of the Roman Empire in the early Roman Period, about which very little is known. This perspective underscores the need for an integrated conservation policy and in-depth research through excavations in the near future.     

Celticity and Storyteller Identity: The Use and Misuse of Ethnicity to Develop a Storyteller's Sense of Self

This paper looks at the self-representation of contemporary or revival storytellers claiming “Celtic” identity for themselves as storytellers, largely based on imagined traits of generic “Celtic” storytellers and storytelling styles, and content, which are conveyed via commercial images, suppositions about the Romantic era, and other mediated, second-hand or even erroneous sources. At the same time, such representations are compared with the self-representations of three traditional storytellers from Ireland and Scotland.     

“Mad” Elves and “Elusive Beauty”: Some Celtic Strands of Tolkien's Mythology [1]

Contrary to Tolkien's refutation of “Celtic things” as a source for his own mythology, this article attempts to show how his work has been inspired by Celtic folklore and myth. The article is not just a source study. It concentrates on one main example from Tolkien's early literary writings that betrays a Celtic influence. At the same time it discusses Tolkien's complex attitude towards “things Celtic” within the context of his strong sense of English identity. Finally, it seeks to explain Tolkien's derogatory comments on Celtic material as a result of popular ideas of “Celticity.”     

Sails in the North—New Perspectives on an Old Problem

The origin of sail has been debated for a long time, but the linguistic evidence has rarely been taken into account. The word sail has a cognate in two Celtic languages, and a good linguistic chronology is available for these. The reconstructed historical development of Celtic and Germanic words indicates that the word existed in West Germanic well before the Anglo-Saxon migrations and the confinement of Celtic to the British Isles. An origin of both word and technology in the Celtic world is proposed, both being passed into the Germanic world in the Rhine region.     

Celtic Ritual Activity at Gordion,Turkey: Evidence from Mortuary Contexts and Skeletal Analysis

Primary support for a Celtic presence in Turkey during ancient times comes from textual sources. However, the analysis of human skeletal remains and mortuary practices at the site of Gordion, combined with archaeological findings, provide persuasive evidence of a Celtic settlement including ritual activity. Data are drawn from 47 individuals excavated from the Lower Town area of the site: 21 Later Hellenistic (late 3^rd to 2^nd centuries BCE) and 26 Roman (1^st to 2^nd centuries CE). The two sub‐samples have markedly different paleodemographic profiles. Composition of the Later Hellenistic group is unusual, with very few infants (5%) and primarily young or middle aged adults (52%), whereas the Roman sample has many infant burials (27%) and less than half young or middle aged adults (35%). Burial contexts for the two groups are also distinct, with only one formal interment associated with the Later Hellenistic, the remaining individuals being in mixed groupings of human and animal bones or disarticulated and commingled human skeletal deposits. By comparison, the Roman sample comprises exclusively primary burials, two cremations, and 24 inhumations. Evidence of inter‐personal violence, such as perimortem cranial trauma and decapitation, is totally absent in the Roman group but present in 25% of the Later Hellenistic specimens. The nature of the Later Hellenistic skeletal assemblages and the ritual space in which they were found show similarities to European Celtic remains identified as resulting from ritual sacrifice. The data presented here represent the first comprehensive bioarchaeological approach to these population groups from central Turkey. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can't find a pulse? Celtic bean (Vicia faba L.) in British prehistory

Archaeobotanical research on prehistoric crops in Britain has primarily focussed on cereals and the potential importance of alternative crops, such as pulses, has often been overlooked. This paper reviews evidence for Celtic bean (Vicia faba L.) in British prehistory, using a database of archaeobotanical assemblages from 75 sites. Celtic bean is rare in the Neolithic – Early Bronze Age and it only becomes frequent from the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1500 cal BC) onwards, particularly in southern England. Though there is a paucity of evidence at many sites, it is suggested that this reflects a preservation bias and in some areas at least, Celtic bean formed an important element of past agricultural systems.     

‘Dark cognition’: W.B. Yeats,J.G. Herder and the imperfection of tradition

In this article I connect Revivalist politics in nineteenth-century Ireland to Enlightenment epistemology by exploring how the ideal of the Irish – or Celtic – folk tradition is embroiled in the problematic of theoretical modernity. I dispute Seamus Deane's ideological characterisation of the Irish tradition, emerging from his encounters with the work of Edmund Burke and Matthew Arnold, and propose an alternative characterisation using Johann Gottfried Herder's theories of the Volk and the origin of language. I show how, at a crucial point in European history, the folk tradition modelled a view of cognition and modernity, which stood apart from analytic rationalism and based itself upon a positive evaluation of the obscurity of sensation. Finally, I read this literary-aesthetic model of what Herder called ‘dark’ cognition into Yeats's early folkloric works of the 1890s, especially The Celtic Twilight; and I make the argument that this often-neglected text does not represent a degeneration of folkloric integrity into Celtic mysticism but a comedic trait of folk modernity.     

Learning to think the past: Heritage,identity and state education in Wales

Abstract

Despite its problematic nature, the term Celtic is often linked with Wales and its history. Commonly regarded as a Celtic nation, the concept has been used to engender a sense of identity and also a sense of difference between Wales and other parts of the British Isles, particularly with England. As the national curriculum has been adapted to the needs of schools in Wales, some of these aims and objectives have been made explicit in many parts of the syllabus. Heritage sites in Wales also relate their history and present archaeology to a Celtic past and a case study of a specific site in Pembrokeshire is used to exemplify this approach. There is evidence that children find these portrayals of their past, as contained in the teaching in schools and site visits, interesting and informative. The dangers lie in the over‐simplification of the contested concept of Celticity and in the shortage of good evaluative assessments of these learning to think approaches.     

“An Ancient Celtic world had filled the air”: the Celtic turn in Louis MacNeice’s mid-century radio writing

This article focuses on the specific meanings and figurations of Celtic identity, myth and history in three works by Louis MacNeice: his long poem Autumn Sequel (1954), written for broadcast on the BBC, and his two late radio plays They Met on Good Friday (1959) and The Mad Islands (1961). It will demonstrate that the poet moves from expressing an archaic and insipidly romanticised form of Celticity in Autumn Sequel, to depicting a significantly more sophisticated Celtic character and identity in They Met on Good Friday and The Mad Islands; both dramas, it will be argued, are informed by a more thoroughly archipelagic conception of cultural formation and identity in the British and Irish isles. In all three texts, MacNeice’s radiogenic engagement with Celtic material functions as a means of interrogating, though not always successfully, the forms and potentialities of human agency, community, and artistic activity within a post-war climate of political disenchantment, social fragmentation and perceived cultural vacuity. The essay will also demonstrate that MacNeice’s Celtic themed radio writing is an important aspect of the poet’s lifelong exploration of his psycho-cultural genealogy and a means of further clarifying his complex maternal and paternal inheritance.     

War Shields of the Torricelli Mountains,West Sepik Province,Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT The usefulness of the term ‘ethnolinguistic group’, as a construct suggesting that ‘differences in language automatically translate into differences in culture’, has been questioned by Welsch, Terrel and Nadolski (1992). Not many researchers would insist on the term ‘automatically’, but would nevertheless support an argument for a strong correlation between material culture and language. As a contribution to this debate, we discuss two types of wood shields of the Torricelli Mountains (one of which is being identified for the first time) and pigskin shields to the south of the Torricellis, their use, and the details of the carved designs of the wood shields. The results of our analysis provide limited support for the correlation of material culture and language but highlight the need for analysis of material culture based on reliable data for a large number and wide range of artefacts, from defined regions, presently held in museums and private collections worldwide.     

THE BADBURY-SHAPWICK HOARD AND THE DATE OF THE MAIDEN CASTLE COINS FROM SIR MORTIMER WHEELER'S 1934–1937 EXCAVATIONS

Summary. Fifteen Celtic coins found during Sir Mortimer Wheeler's excavations have never been dated with precision. A hoard of similar coins, found in the vicinity of Badbury Rings hillfort gives us a yardstick for their chronology.     

The Iron Age in Western Spain (800 BC–AD 50): An Overview

Vettonia was one of the most important Celtic regions in Iberia which emerged in the Iron Age. It corresponds largely to western Spain, between the Duero and Tagus valleys. The archaeological evidence indicates that the formation of this ethnic group lay in an historical process whose roots went back to the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age, when we begin to find a regular association between the first fortified sites and stable populations. These groups did not consolidate before the second half of the first millennium BC, in parallel with the development of other peoples of the interior of the Iberian Peninsula. This period can be recognized in particular through the spread of the ritual of cremation, ironworking, the adoption of the potter's wheel and the expansion of some settlements oppida which were ultimately to disappear with the Roman conquest. This paper sets out to examine the evolution of the area from an indigenous perspective, examining the process of change before and after the evidence referred to by Greek and Roman writers.     

DETECTING CHANGES OF CELTIC GOLD SOURCES THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF TRACE ELEMENT AND Pb ISOTOPE LASER ABLATION ANALYSIS OF CELTIC GOLD COINS*

This project follows on from an initial study of Celtic gold coins from the Middle Rhine/Moselle region, which was based on material found at the Martberg, a Late Iron Age/Roman sanctuary and settlement (River Moselle, western Germany; Bendall 2003 ). The earlier work was expanded to encompass over 100 examples of various other regional Celtic gold coinages from the collection of the Römisch‐Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz. The alloy (Au–Ag–Cu) and trace element compositions (in particular Ni, Sb and Pt) were determined by EPMA and LA–ICP–MS, respectively, and their Pb isotope signatures were measured by LA–MC–ICP–MS. Of the 28 trace elements measured, only Ni, Sb and Pt were found to show meaningful variations and so only they are presented here. In particular, differences in the Pt/Au ratios between various groups of earlier coinage (imitations of Philippus and Alexander/Nike staters, Sch. 23 and some early Boian coins) on the one hand, and the majority of the Boian and the southern rainbow cup coinages on the other, indicate a significant difference in the gold sources exploited for these regional coinages. The Pb isotope data confirm previous conclusions that the contribution of gold to the total lead in the Au–Ag–Cu coin alloys can be detected, especially for coins with over 70% gold, and show that possible gold sources include both eastern Mediterranean and Alpine sources. Combining the Pb isotope data with the Pt/Au ratios allows the potential gold sources to be further differentiated.     

Settlement and settlement continuity in the parish of karlsoey in the middle ages. An analysis based on written sources

Cultural relations in the central Celtic and the Germanic regions during the late LaTene/pre‐Roman iron age have been investigated through a comparison of the fibula material from different sub‐regions. The reliability of results based on occurrence patterns for fibula types has been tested by a direct comparison of the fibulae, without prior type classification. To check the representativity, a detailed analysis has been made of the Northern Germanic region, including also other kinds of artifacts. It appears that cultural relations reflected in similarity of fibulae, dress ornaments and other personal adornments cross the boundaries of the main cultural areas defined through more stable cultural elements, like pottery and burial types and burial customs, while the relations reflected in similar weapons respect these boundaries.     

Fossil Folklore from India: The Siwalik Hills and the Mahâbhârata

Many medievalists, especially scholars of Celtic literature, have observed that red-eared white animals are associated with fairies and other supernatural beings. What has not been satisfactorily answered is why this should be so. This article offers a possible explanation, suggesting that this widespread phenomenon is rooted not in fantasy but in zoology.     

Subsistence practices in an arid environment: a geoarchaeological investigation in an Iron Age site,the Negev Highlands,Israel

The Negev Highlands (southern Israel) is an arid zone characterized by settlement oscillations. One settlement peak occurred in the early Iron Age IIA (late 10th and early 9th centuries BC). The most conspicuous structure in many sites of this period is an oval compound comprised of an internal courtyard surrounded by rooms. Two hypotheses for the function of these oval compounds are that they served as Israelite fortresses which guarded the southern border and routes of the Solomonic kingdom, or that they represent local agro-pastoral groups. In order to gather more information regarding the subsistence practices conducted in these oval compounds, we carried out a small-scale excavation at the site of Atar Haroa. We focused on sediment sampling and used several geoarchaeological, as well as isotopic, techniques in order to identify macroscopic and microscopic remains related to animal husbandry and crop agriculture. The remains identified from the archaeological sediments were compared with modern reference materials collected from abandoned Bedouin camps. The excavation included two half rooms and several test pits in the courtyard of the oval compound, featuring one Iron Age occupation level composed of gray sediments and relatively small amounts of pottery, bones and macro-botanical charred remains. Micromorphological, mineralogical, dung spherulite and isotopic analyses carried out on the gray occupational sediments from the rooms show that they originate from wood ash and dung, both used as fuel. Similar analyses of the gray sediments in the courtyard show that they originate only from degraded livestock dung. Phytolith analyses show that the gray anthropogenic sediments have similar concentrations of phytoliths as in control (yellowish) sediments and in the dung of winter free-grazing desert livestock and lichen-grazing black dwarf Bedouin goats. Phytoliths indicative of cereal crops are completely absent in the archaeological dung remains, indicating that cereal crops were not processed by the site inhabitants. Based on ethnographic and archaeological parallels, and on the presence of grinding stones and absence of sickle blades in the excavated rooms, we infer that the inhabitants at the oval compound at Atar Haroa subsisted on livestock herding and bought or exchanged cereal grains. Our results support the hypothesis that the inhabitants at the oval compound at Atar Haroa were desert-adapted pastoralists, rather than garrisoned soldiers.     

In search of Wales: travel writing and narratives of difference, 1918–50

Travel writers since the eighteenth century have sought to portray Wales as a place of «difference» with its own culture, history and legends woven into the landscape. Their texts were later to inspire twentieth-century travellers. These later travellers also drew on the academic work of geographers, anthropologists and archaeologists such as H.J. Fleure, Cyril Fox and E.G. Bowen who wrote extensively and influentially on their ideas of identity and race grounded in the landscapes of Wales. One recurrent theme throughout these popular travel narratives, like H.V. Morton'sIn Search of Wales , was that of a Celtic history and culture, evident both in landscape and in the people. Travellers» books recorded journeys punctuated by visits to the monuments of this Celtic past with its hill-forts and standing stones, and by encounters with the peoples of Wales. The literature of travellers and academics combined to create a particular form of text for Wales that in turn became the language for the promotion of tourism and for the images and experiences of Wales that could be taken away by those who came to visit.     

Between Worlds: Considering Celtic feminine identities in The Secret of Roan Inish

This article explores the ways in which Celtic oral traditions concerning the 'place' of women are replayed within a contemporary textual form, namely the 1995 film, The Secret of Roan Inish. Through an examination of the representation of gender relations within the film, we address how the incorporation of mythic elements is intended to provide a sense of female 'empowerment'. While the film has been praised for its positive portrayal of Irish Celtic women, we suggest that the various qualities of strength associated with the female lead characters are expressed within the context of a discursive framework that valorizes certain roles and behavior as 'natural' at the expense of other modes of life, and, further, ties the construction of subject identities into a fixed, or essentialist, notion of 'place'. Rather than presume that this filmic vision of Irish Celtic feminine identities is intrinsically regressive, however, we note that in our act of viewing Roan Inish those identities are recontextualized further in, we hope, a progressive, post-structuralist manner.