Rethinking earliest Celtic gold - Economic, social and technological perspectives in the West Hallstatt Culture

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The aim of the project is to contribute to the understanding of the economic, social and technological development of the West Hallstatt Culture (8th -5th centuries BC) through the study of the production and consumption of gold objects. This culture of the Early Iron Age, cross-bordering mainly southwest Germany and eastern France, but also represented in Switzerland and Austria, Is characterized by fortified settlements and rich elite burial mounds in which the gold items are deposited. We intend to study the social dynamics and hierarchies, combined with craft specialization during the Hallstatt period by mainly investigating prestige objects from burial sites. Fine metal work is especially suitable to reveal traditions and local innovations as well as foreign influences and exchange networks in arts and crafts. The strength of the project is in the international collaboration of German and French scientists and in their Interdisciplinary excellence in archaeology, archaeometry, technology and experimental archaeology. It is also based on new laboratory equipment allowing innovative high precision observations. We intend to take into account all aspects of Early Iron Age gold for the first time: from the raw material, covering the transformation Into artefacts, their utilization and distribution, until to the final deposition and finally the archaeological discovery. The interdisciplinary methodology integrates the study of the cultural context, morphology and function. Several approaches will be combined, such as archaeometry for the characterisation of the materials, technology for the reconstruction of manufacturing processes and epistemology for the history of archaeological interpretation. These observations will be integrated into a wider socio-economic and technological context in order to enlight changes in stylistic traditions and technologies of luxury objects in relation to the socio-economic organization of the Hallstatt period.