MAn - copie.pdf

                        Mediated diffusion in Iron Age Europe N. James∗ Diffusion of Mediterranean traits to central and north-western Europe during the middle Iron Age is a topic well rehearsed now by three generations of archaeologists. The stimulating recent exhibition Golasecca at the Musée d’Archéologie nationale in France, showed that – funds permitting – plenty of scope remains for research. Elaborately made imports, at for instance the Heuneburg, Vix or Hochdorf, have been interpreted as evidence for how aristocrats adopted Greek and Etruscan styles to reinforce their status and regional power between about 600 and 400 BC. Art historians revealed how their bronzesmiths responded selectively to templates from not only states to the south but also eastern nomads. Archaeologists worked out how goods were brought up the Rhône valley by the enterprising Greeks of Marseille or by the northerners themselves exploiting that colony. The ‘trade’ is thought to have encouraged development of social complexity. More recently, to demonstrate the recipients’ ‘agency’, attention has focused on potters’ responses, adoption of coinage and writing and ‘feasts’ for chiefs to show off ‘prestigious’ exotica to rivals, clients or tributaries. Similar models of trade, ‘appropriation’ and sociopolitical development have been developed for the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age. Despite ramifying perspectives from history and anthropology, the research has tended to envisage routes comprising only two or three stages: the original source of a given product or motif, the findspot; and perhaps some ‘civilised’ station along the way. In step with the recent concern about local creativity, the exhibition argued that certain generically southern wares in Switzerland and nearby regions of France and Germany show influence from the Italian Alps. The co-curator, Veronica Cicolani, sought to demonstrate how Golasecca bronzesmiths and jewellers adapted their work in response to imports from Etruria and the Adriatic and how their versions were then taken north and west. If she is right, then what arrived there was not simply Mediterranean wares borne by passive ‘intermediaries’ but also pieces interpreted, as it were, by Golasecca ‘mediators’. The difference is explained by the sociologist Bruno Latour (2005: 39). Golasecca was at the Musée d’Archéologie nationale, Saint-Germain-en-Laye Castle, near Paris, from November 2009 to April 2010. Assembled from 20 collections in Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany, it comprised a precise and simple argument of six parts. The first explained the early history of research, notably the vision of the redoubtable Gabriel de Mortillet and the fieldwork of Alexandre Bertrand, whose notebooks were shown alongside the proceedings of the international congresses that defined the Golasecca culture. Bertrand dug four tombs at Monsorino in 1873 and sent them to Saint-Germain, pots, metalwork and the cists’ glistening Alpine flagstones, all (Figure 1). Tomb 4 was reassembled in the gallery. The next two parts showed typological and chronological specimens of pottery ∗ Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK ANTIQUITY 84 (2010): 880–883 http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/084/ant0840880.htm 880 N. James and bronzework, supplemented with documents and illustrations of the museum’s own from 1883. The Golasecca culture is known mostly from burials but the remarkably diverse hoard of bronze ware from Arbedo was shown too and more recent finds from settlements, notably Castelleto Ticino (barely published yet). Pottery and a cobble also revealed that, in the sixth century, some Golaseccans – or visitors of theirs – wrote, apparently in Celtic (Figure 2). Then, to prove Cicolani’s argument, the last part of the exhibition presented pieces with Golasecca affinities from the high wayside settlement of Gamsen and from funerary assemblages in the Alps, the Swiss plateau and eastern France. The Golasecca culture flourished from about 900 to about 400 BC. It conformed broadly to the Urnfield tradition of burial (Pauli 1971; Ridgway 1979; Chirat 2009). There are diagnostic pots – an early rectangular pedestalled dish and the ‘double cup’ vase are striking – but more memorable was the smiths’ ‘savoir-faire artisanal’ (Chirat 2009: 135) in a range of forms and styles of decoration familiar from the south. As well as some arms and armour, bronzesmiths beat out and assembled buckets (situlae) of intricate design, decorating them with confident daintiness. They enjoyed exquisite control in moulding elegant brooches (fibulae) of new varieties, some inlaid with iron and imported amber or coral. They cast delicate little pendants. Silver and gold was worked with the same finesse. The brooches were moulded in more than one stage with varying proportions of lead and tin for successive stages of manufacture (Chirat 2009: 66); and some were repaired. 881 Debate Figure 1. Drawing of burial goods from Monsorino (1873; Réunion des Musées Nationaux). Mediated diffusion in Iron Age Europe Figure 2. Inscribed cobble (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Piemonte e del Museo di Antichità Egizie). North of the homeland, these products are found in diverse assemblages including apparently direct or ’unmediated’ imports from the Mediterranean and, occasionally, ordinary Golasecca pottery. They date from the seventh century BC on. Who brought these mélanges, then? The little Golasecca bronze accoutrements are read as luxuries. At home and elsewhere in the Alps, much of the material is from graves interpreted as women’s. Further afield, it has been found in other contexts too, including workshops at Bragny-surSaône and the Bourguignon-lès-Morey hillfort. These finds, it was argued, trace regional ‘networks’ among elites probably exchanging hospitality and perhaps wives, with some craft workers accompanying their patrons to France (Chirat 2009: 130-31, 136-7). J.-L. Flouest and P.-Y. Milcent suggest that the Gauls invading Italy in 390–388 BC – when the Golasecca 882 sequence ended – exploited the same networks (Chirat 2009: 130, 142). Thus Golasecca made a substantial claim about culture history and about how archaeology can reveal distinct and distinctive links of transmission, if not yet the social and economic mechanisms. Latour would have enjoyed it. To have selected and assembled so many exhibits should have been the main challenge but, the gallery’s simple and cogent plan notwithstanding, the story proved difficult to convey. The problems were technical. The temporary exhibition gallery’s cases are permanent. Nor, apparently, could the lights be moved much. So some of the displays looked adrift in cases too big; certain details of the bronzework were difficult to see; and at least one of the illustrations from the archive was squeezed into a cramped corner. Some of the texts were very long (’book on a wall’); but some exhibits lay unlabelled (including one of the museum’s own, brought down from the permanent displays). The main typological display – a very good feature, in principle – was ambiguous; and it took a long time to trace diagnostic attributes from case to case. There was, indeed, an impressive schedule of gallery talks; but visitors could have been handed annotated drawings to consult among the exhibits. Or contrasting products of other traditions could have been shown too; or visitors encouraged to compare specimens in the permanent exhibition (where items moved to Golasecca were labelled as such). As for the attractive catalogue (Chirat 2009), it ignores some of the exhibits; it should surely have explained more about the museum’s recent analyses of the bronze and pottery (V. Cicolani pers. comm. 2010); and the exhibition’s basic argument is almost concealed amidst other details. Nor was the book thoroughly edited. The slide show at the end of the exhibition looked tatty; and perhaps that was the clue. The very first sight on approaching the museum is tatty too: the display of megalithic tombs is strewn with weeds. The permanent collection is being refurbished: the new displays are effective but they are simple; and the project is proceeding very slowly indeed. Here is one of the world’s foremost national museums of archaeology; it looks needy. Must we accept compromises these days (James 2009)? The integrity of Golasecca’s intense learning sharpened the irony. Acknowledgements Christine Lorre and Veronica Cicolani were exceedingly generous in showing me Golasecca. Thanks go too to their colleague, Philippe Guignard, and the Réunion des musées nationaux. Madeleine Hummler and Simon Stoddart commented most helpfully on a draft of the text; but the blame for any remaining faults is mine. References PAULI, L. 1971. Studien zur Golasecca-Kultur (Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Römische Abteilung Supplement 19). Heidelberg: Kerle. RIDGWAY, F.R. 1979. The Este and Golasecca cultures: a chronological guide, in D. & F.R. Ridgway (ed.) Italy before the Romans: the Iron Age, orientalizing and Etruscan periods: 419–87. London: Academic Press. CHIRAT, N. (ed.) 2009. Golasecca: du commerce et des hommes à l’âge du Fer (VIII e − V e siècle av. J.-C.). Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux. JAMES, N. 2009. Are Catalans ignoring archaeology? Antiquity 83: 844-8. LATOUR, B. 2005. Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 883 Debate N. James