: -Brcouahee- 0% § | Resta. ae. Pre Aesiak Gl d. » Bc ale texte cou camel By — Guopans lex de P Wells. we da, alle « don echjeuae del SPCR Ce odajon 5 alelens Paginece The internal structure and regional context of Early Iron Age society in south-western Germany * by SUSAN FRANKENSTEIN and M. J. KOWLANDS For later European prehistory, the 7th to Sth centuries BC mark a period of renewed and more intensive interaction between the Mediterranean world and Europe north of the Alps. It represents however only a stage in the generat sequence of the » symbiotic development of the two regions during prehistory and history which has led to *s the observation on more than one occasion that Europe and the Mediterranean world form a larger system within which local sequences of change must be studied (e.g. Braudel, 1972: 168-70) However. the present tendency in prehistoric studies is to regard Iron Age cultural developments in Central Europe as essentially independent phenomena, related only in terms of trade with the Mediterranean world. The economic structure of Hallstatt society has been viewed in terms of a feudal model in which a warrior class owned land and other means of production and thereby controlled a peasant class from. which they appropri. | ated. ¢ consumables. Thus, relations between, south-west Germany and the Mediterranean world have been viewed primarily in terms of interaction and exchange between autonomous units and not in terms of their inter dependent development as part of a single regional system This paper will argue therefore that the internal structure of local societies in the European Iron Age have always to be viewed in the context of their occupying a depen dent position in @ regional system dominated by the expansion and growth of the more complex and competitive city states and colonies in the central und western Mediter- Fanean, It is only by studying the processes that regulated and organised this larger regional economy that we wil] be able to understand the cunditions for the emergence of local state forms in the late Iron Age based on a semi-commercialised economy which may, in the long term, be crucial for our understanding of the expansion of Rome into Western Europe and the particular decentralised feudal/mercantile formations that followed We must begin however by considering the appropriateness of existing explanations for the Early Iron Age based on comparisons with later medieval feudal systems. Kimmig, 4 ate ot wl x8, segs. F3- NZSUSAN FRANKENSTEIN and M. J. ROWLANDS ‘he most influential ofall Heuneburg authorities, has adopted and elaborated the concept of Fursten in many publications and used the terms Adelsitz, Furstensita and Herrensi: as alternative designations for these settlements which he regards as functionally indis- tinct from medieval burgs and defines by the proximity of Firsten graves, the presence of southern imports and the layout of the settlement to include an acropolis and suburbium Also, Kimmig regards the late Hallstatt Fursten as intrusive ~ probably Celtic — and mad up of individuals who established their sites of residence and styles of life in ways con (isting markedly with those of other settlements of the time. Thus the original model oy ) an indigenous feudal society in contrast with and therefore influenced by the Mediter. fancan world is distorted by (b) an attempt to impose a model of conquest and domins Hon, thus separating the Fursten graves from their local context and (c) attributing the Firsten with aspirations to a civilised (ie. urban) way of life Underlying this use of a feudal model is a belief in a cyclical course of historical development. Thus, early medieval society is regarded as @ reversion to a pre-Roman situation. The effects of the emergence and expansion of Rome are minimised and the dominance of a specifically European and timeless social form is assumed. There is, of course, considerable value in relating post-Roman society to its pre-Roman counterpart but if the relationship between Early Iron Age and early medieval society isto be tested then the general situation musi not be assumed to be the same. By the late ron Age (mainly La,Téne C), certain developments.had taken. place in Central Europe which hed clearly altered the structure of European. society as it had been in the Early Iron Age During the Late Iron Age the existence of far-reaching trade networks within Central Europe (and beyond it), the establishment of large seule manufacturing centies, often within walled urban settlements, and the minting of coins are known, Thus, this was « Society of essentially different economic and political structure from the Hallstatt D Society Kimmig is trying to elucidate, When early medieval society is compared with a Pre-Roman counterpart, itis to the Late Iron Age therefore that one should refer. This is not to deny that use of such Structural analogues is not fequired at the theoretical level nor to urgue instead that the archaeological ‘facts’ will speak for themselves. Quite the contrary, we would urgue that such analogues have always been made and that a similar but more explicit methodology needs t be employed. We would criticise the use of a Feudal ‘mode! as unsuitad and insteud propose an alternative ‘exchange, Dehn appears to make an equally inadvisable recourse tu later medieval history When he notes that there are reports trom the Middle Ages until the beginning of this century of transhuntance from the arey north-west of the Alps ~ in particular the Swabian Alb — t Burgundy and sometimes further south (Delin, 1972). There seems to be no Justification 10 refer to such specific instances of movement when they are confined to later historical patterns of economic specialisation und regivnel divisions of labour stimulated by the market demands of urbun centres. An ecolugical determinist rationale arguing for transhumanee as a necessary adaptation to harsh winters would equally be 2 in structure ty explain the Larly Iron Age concrete situation ode] derived from various anthropological theories of "4EARLY IRON AGE SOCIETY IN SOUTH-WESTERN GERMANY subyerted by the’ fact that long distance transhumance is not an ecologically consistent feature even in the later history of temperate Europe but varies with economic cireum- stances (Slicher van Barth, 1966: 167, 213-14, 255). A_more_useful starting point is provided in the largely unpublished work of Drihatis where he attempts to interpret the evidence from the Heuneburg graves and ‘settlements in terms of the economic role of the Heuneburg. Following Kossack’s (1959: 10) recognition of, and emphasis on, craft centres in Ha C, Driehaus stress the economic function of the Ha D Fiirsten residences, particularly in the provision of technical skills, facilities and raw materials for the construction of elaborate artefacts such as wagons and the mass production of simpler items, such as the bronze armings known to have been made at the Talhau, These specialist craftsmen, he suggests, had to depend on their ‘customers’ for subsistence products and raw materials. Iron, charcoal, wood, skins, wool and surplus foodstuffs would have to be obtained from a large area serving the Heuneburg (Driehaus, n.d.: 282~3), He proposes that the extensive workshops at a Furstensit would have supplied those Fiirsten who were not resident at the Fuirstensitz and whose graves are found further away. A significant part of Driehaus’s interpretation is this proposed dependence of the Aussenposten on the dominant Zentralen which, in the case of Ha D, would be the Heuneburg and Hohenasperg, and as yet unknown sites in the Upper Rhine and Switzerland, He interprets the grave goods irsten in terms of trade and production. But he offérs no adequate explanation of the way in which trade and production for exchange Were orginised and Tow they contribuied 0 the maintenance of the Fursien Instead, Driehaus resorts to a notion of individual ability and choice and attributes the Fuirsten- graber to men who could recognise the ‘economic possibilities’ of their time and use them to achieve high rank within their society. By attributing modern economic principles of supply and demand, production capacity and business acumen to the organisation of Hallstatt society, he misses the social mechanisms which control and organise economic functions The formulation of a model of prestige-goods economy It is proposed here that real progress in our understanding of the Early Iron Age in south-western Geriiany “ait “oily be achieved by the rigorous application of a mode] Based on general anthropological theories, of exchange, and in particular on the Work of Meillassoux (1960), Dupré and Rey (1968), Dupré (1972), Ekholun. (1972), Sahlins (1963, 1968, 1972), Suathern (1971) and others. Their formulations have been tested on cases in different parts of the world, The association of @shiical power with ESET SES WS TSFRIBE BEAD which are assigned high status has een, obseiue CE ee eee eee oe ee Corest analysed. They have defined and demonstrated the function of these ‘prestige-good Zconomnies’. The general value of their work on relations between economic and political organisation and the explanatory value of their theoretical framework will be demon. 15