GIS Analysis of Celtic Princely Sites and Their Environs
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This document discusses the analysis of Celtic "Princely Sites" using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It begins by defining "Princely Sites" and providing examples, like the Heuneburg and Glauberg sites. The data and methodology used in the GIS analyses are described. The document then discusses rethinking the concept of "Princely Sites" through GIS analyses, looking at aspects like viewsheds, routes, and relationships between sites and their hinterlands. It explores how GIS can provide new insights into questions around centralization of power and the roles of these sites. The summary concludes by mentioning the project aims to better understand settlement patterns and social organization through these spatial analyses.
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GIS Analysis of Celtic Princely Sites and Their Environs
- 1. Hinterland, Influence, Environs The analysis of Celtic “Princely Sites” with the help of Geographic Information Systems Dr. Axel G. Posluschny M.A. EU-Project ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Roman-Germanic Commission of the German-Archaeological Institute Palmengartenstr. 10-12 D-60325 Frankfurt posluschny@rgk.dainst.de http://www.archaeolandscapes.eu
- 2. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Content • Defining an “Early Celtic Fürstensitz” • Examples of “Princely Sites” • Data and Methodological Background • Rethinking “Princely Sites” – Examples of GIS Analyses • Central Places, Central Functions & the Hinterland • Summary, Some Kind of Synthesis • Beyond GIS and “Fürstensitze”: The ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Project
- 3. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Defining an “Early Celtic Fürstensitz”
- 4. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 “Fürstensitze” – “Princely Sites” “Fürstensitz” Area of Research
- 5. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Definition “Fürstensitz” / “Princely Site” W. Kimmig (1969): 1. Fortified settlement on an outstanding hill site 2. Imported goods from the Mediterranean (Greek tableware, transport amphorae, … ) 3. Settlement with associated rich graves 4. Acropolis and suburbium Burial moundBurial mound ““KleinaspergleKleinaspergle”” ““FürstensitzFürstensitz”” HohenaspergHohenasperg
- 6. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Examples of “Princely Sites”
- 7. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Heuneburg “Fürstensitz”
- 8. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Heuneburg “Fürstensitz”
- 9. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Heuneburg “Fürstensitz”
- 10. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Heuneburg “Fürstensitz”
- 11. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Heuneburg “Fürstensitz”
- 12. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg “Fürstensitz”
- 13. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg “Fürstensitz”
- 14. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Ipf “Fürstensitz”
- 15. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Ipf “Fürstensitz”
- 16. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Marienberg “Fürstensitz”
- 17. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Marienberg “Fürstensitz”
- 18. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Data and Methodological Background
- 19. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Research Questions of the “Fürstensitze” Project - Concentration of Power? - Concentration of Economic Wealth? - Integration of Local and Microregional Societies into Supraregional Societies? Research Basis: -Analysis of Settlement Structures • (Source: http://www.fuerstensitze.de/)
- 20. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Project Regions 1: Marienberg (Würzburg) 2: Glauberg (Wetterau) 3: Heuneburg (Obere Donau) 4: Ipf (Ries) 5: Ehrenbürg (Oberfranken) 6: Münsterberg (Breisach) 7: Straubinger Donautal 8: Hohenasperg (Neckar) 9: Vladař (Böhmen) 10: Zavist (Böhmen, nicht erfasst) 11: Altmühltal 12: Bad Dürkheim (Pfalz, nicht erfasst)
- 21. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Archaeological Data • All Settlement Sites (ca. 5800) • All Burial Sites (ca. 7700, thereof ca. 5000 undated burial mounds) • Other Sites (single finds, caves, road structures, ...; ca. 1400) • 3 Epochs: - Late Bronze Age Urnfield Period(ca. 1200–750 v. Chr.) - Early Iron Age Hallstatt Period (ca. 750– 450 v. Chr.) - Early Iron Age Early Latène Period (ca. 450–250 v. Chr.)
- 22. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Environmental Data • Topography: • Height • Slope • Aspect • Distance to water • Geology: • Distance to Löß soils • Soil type • … • Climate: • Annual precipitation • Beginning of Spring and beginning of late Summer • Environmental classes • ...
- 23. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 16.09.2006 source: V. Gaffney/Z. Stan i , GIS approaches to regional analysis: A case study of the island of Hvarč č 2 (Ljubljana 1996)
- 24. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Centralisation • “Concentration of Power” • Centralisation of Power • Economic Wealth = Power? • Central Power = Central Place?
- 25. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Central places – central functions (after Gringmuth-Dallmer 1999) governance/ administration protection trade commerce/ craft/ ... cult/religion settlements with several central functions complex centre settlements with one central functionsettlements with one central function self-sustaining autarkic rural settlements
- 26. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Central places – central functions governance/ administration protection trade commerce/ craft/ ... cult/religion strong relationship/dependency weak relationship/dependency
- 27. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Methods and Theory „With experience, GIS becomes simply an extension of one's own analytical thinking. The system has no inherent answers, only those of the analyst. It is a tool, just like statistics is a tool. It is a tool for thought. ... In many ways, learning GIS involves learning to think—learning to think about patterns, about space and about processes that act in space.“ J. R. EASTMAN, IDRISI Kilimanjaro. Guide to GIS and Image Processing (Worcester/MA 2003) 20
- 28. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Landscape Archaeology and Settlement Archaeology "The key point to emphasis is that external factors influenced behaviour, and this behaviour left patterns in space that could be objectively measured and quantified." D. Wheatley/M. Gillings, Spatial technology and archaeology. The archaeological application of GIS (London, New York 2002) 7
- 29. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Rethinking “Princely Sites” Examples of GIS Analyses
- 30. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Viewshed Heuneburg ( )Viewshed Bussen ( ) Prominence and Viewsheds The area around the Heuneburg “Fürstensitz”
- 31. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg and its Environs Ha Ha/Lt eLt Visibility of the Glaubergs from contemporary settlements in the Wetterau (max. visibility 10 km [top] und 20 km [bottom]) Ha Ha/Lt eLt
- 32. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 33. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 34. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 35. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 36. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 37. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 38. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 39. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg – a Wealthy Place
- 40. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg and its Connections Hunsrück area
- 41. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Routes According to Traditional ResearchAssumptions: 1. It is possible to reconstruct ancient routes by projecting back from modern ones 2. Ancient roads always run along crests of hills and mountains 3. Prehistoric routes follow lines of prehistoric burial mounds – Prehistoric burial mounds were built along roads and paths after Loewe 1956
- 42. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Testing the Traditional Model Walking on Hilltops? Iron Age routes, river and swamp bridges in Switzerland (after Jud 2003) Swamp bridge in Bavaria (after Schußmann 1996)
- 43. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Testing the Traditional Model Hilltops?
- 44. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Testing the Traditional Model Hilltops? 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300 325 350 0 2500 5000 7500 10000 12500 Cross Section Meters Meters
- 45. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Testing the Traditional Model Routes and Burial Mounds
- 46. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Testing the Traditional Model Routes and Burial Mounds - 1 . 2 - 0 . 8 - 0 . 4 0 0 . 4 0 . 8 1 . 2 lp i b u r ia ls lp i b u r ia ls v is ib le f r o m r o a d s ( 1 0 0 0 m ) l p i r a n d o m p o in t s
- 47. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 But ... Routes and roads depend on the aim of the traveller: • Trade (carriage, load) • Social contact • Migration • … They depend also on: • The climate: Winter/Summer vs. Spring/Autumn • Personal/social experience • Tradition • Regularity vs. “spontaneity” There is not one single road or track, there is a large variety of options, based on different needs and circumstances There is no proof of prehistoric roads/routes being the basis of the economic wealth and power of the Glauberg
- 48. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012
- 49. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg - Explaining Meaning
- 50. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg - Explaining Meaning
- 51. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Glauberg - Explaining Meaning
- 52. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Explaining Meaning – A Calendar Building after Deiss 2008
- 53. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Explaining Meaning – A Calendar Building
- 54. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Central Places, Central Functions & the Hinterland
- 55. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Importance of the Environs Aspect of settlement sites
- 56. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Site Catchment Site Soil types Site surrounding Soil types in the site’s hinterland
- 57. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 source: V. Gaffney/Z. Stan i , GIS approaches to regional analysis: A case study of the island of Hvar2 (Ljubljana 1996)č č
- 58. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 ‘Cost dependent’ Settlement Hinterlands Each point within the catchment area can be reached from the settlement (red spot) with the same maximum effort (time, calorie expenditure, …) (Basis: slope, large streams) 0 2 3 5 6 -0.3 -0.25 -0.2 -0.15 -0.1 -0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1 2,5012 2,9796 3,5494 4,2282 5,0368 6,0000 5,0368 4,2282 3,5494 2,9796 2,5012 2,0997 1,7626 1,4796 1,2421 1,0427 0,8753 0,7348 0,6168 0,5178 0,4347 0,3649 0,3063 0,2571 0,2159 0,1812 0,1521 v = 6e −3.5 s+0.05 v = walking speed (km/h) s = slope (mathematical) based on L. J. Goren ofl /N. Gale, Mapping Regional Settlement in Information Space. Journal Anthr. Arch. 9, 1990, 240–274
- 59. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Hinterland Strategies
- 60. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The Marienberg costbuffers
- 61. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Defining borders by limits of visibility: 5 km cumulative viewsheds (green) and the burial mounds in the Glauberg vicinity
- 62. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Excursus: LiDAR scans and burial mounds in the forests
- 63. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 LiDAR /Airborne Laser Scanning
- 64. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 LiDAR /Airborne Laser Scanning
- 65. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 LiDAR /Airborne Laser Scanning
- 66. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The “hinterland” and its size
- 67. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The “hinterland” and its size
- 68. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 The “hinterland” and its size
- 69. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Natural resources Soil – suitability for plant cultivation
- 70. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Natural resources Soil – suitability for plant cultivation
- 71. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Natural resources Soil – suitability for plant cultivation
- 72. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Natural resources Soil – suitability for plant cultivation
- 73. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Hinterland Sizes Ipf Goldberg „Bugfeld“ „Zaunä cker“
- 74. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 posluschny@rgk.dainst.de Hinterland & Alimentation • Elske Fischer (elske.fischer@rps.bwl.de) => palaeobotany • Axel G. Posluschny (posluschny@rgk.dainst.de) => archaeology, GIS analyses • Manfred Rösch (Manfred.Roesch@rps.bwl.de) => palaeobotany • Kristine Schatz (Kristine.Schatz@rps.bwl.de) => archaeozoology • Elisabeth Stephan elisabeth.stephan@rps.bwl.de) => archaeozoology • Astrid Stobbe (Stobbe@em.uni-frankfurt.de) => pollen analyses
- 75. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Environmental Basics • Soil • values based on the “Reichsbodenschä tzung” • > 40 --> potential fields • Topography • slope < 10% --> ploughable • slope > 10% --> potential grazing land • meadows --> potential grazing land <20 20-27 28-40 41-60 61-75 >75 E. Fischer
- 76. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Data Combination Heuneburg (Baden-Württemberg) Utilisation/suitability: fields, medium (48.9%) fields, medium/high (2.2%) fields, high (2.2%) meadows, wetland/pasture (37.6%) woods, dryland/pasture (8.4%) indeterminable/nondescript (0.6%)
- 77. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Environmental Basics
- 78. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Dynamics of Soil Development
- 79. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Calculating Needs and Supply
- 80. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Calculating Needs and Supply
- 81. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Calculation of Potential - Crops 4000 2000 1500
- 82. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Calculation of Potential - Crops 4000 2000 1500
- 83. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Calculation of Potential - Livestock
- 84. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Calculation of Potential - Livestock
- 85. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Outlook • Refinement of the model, taking into account the possibilities of replacing exhausted nitrogen and phosphate • Rechecking the used parameters for times of fallow, calorie consumption, hinterland sizes, ... • Revision of the model on the basis of the environmental reconstruction with the help of pollen analyses • Conversion of the Excel file in use into a runtime database (FileMaker) for a free distribution
- 86. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Outlook • Development of a calculation model within a GIS software (gvSIG) based on the actual model • Calculation and analysis of the feeding potential of about 5500 settlement sites
- 87. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Densities and Gaps 0.00 200.00 400.00 600.00 800.00 1000.00 1200.00 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 km Zuwachs Maindreieck, Uk-Siedlungen Maindreieck, Ha-Siedlungen Maindreieck, fLt-Siedlungen A. Zimmermann/J. Richter/Th. Frank/K. P. Wendt, Landschaftsarchä ologie II – Überlegungen zu Prinzipien einer Landschaftsarchä ologie. Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 85, 2004 (2005) 37–95. Zimmermann et al. 52, fig. 5
- 88. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Marienberg: Settlement Densities 0.00 200.00 400.00 600.00 800.00 1000.00 1200.00 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 km Zuwachs Maindreieck, Uk-Siedlungen Maindreieck, Ha-Siedlungen Maindreieck, fLt-Siedlungen Uk period Ha period
- 89. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Glauberg: Settlement Densities 0.00 50.00 100.00 150.00 200.00 250.00 300.00 350.00 400.00 450.00 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 12. 15 17. km Zuwachs Wetterau, Uk-Siedlungen Wetterau, Ha-Siedlungen Wetterau, fLt-Siedlungen Wetterau, Ha/fLt- und fLt-Siedlungen Uk period Ha period Ha/eLt & eLt period
- 90. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 good poor SlopeSoil quality flat steep Wetterau: Settlement Gaps
- 91. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Summary and Some Kind of Synthesis
- 92. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Central meaning vs. central location Distance of „Princely Sites“ to macrochore borders Distance of „Princely Sites“ to main water streams
- 93. Uppsala University – 22/10/2012 Settlement sites per 100 years
- 95. www.archaeolandscapes.eu ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Roman-Germanic Commission • Agreement Number: 2010-1486 • Start: 15th September 2010 • End: 14th September 2015 • EU Advancement: 2,5 Mio € • Total Budget: 5 Mio € • Partner Institutions: 61(at present) • Project Leadership: Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute ArchaeoLandscape Europe is supported by the EU within the framework of the Culture 2007-2013 programme
- 96. www.archaeolandscapes.eu ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Roman-Germanic Commission Coordinator/Project Leader 1. Roman-Germanic Commission, German Archaeological Institut (DE) Co-organisers: 1. In Flanders Fields Museum, Belgium (BE) 2. Cyprus Research and Education Foundation (STARC) (CY) 3. Holstebro Museum (DK) 4. State Heritage Service Baden-Württemberg (DE) 5. Institute for Mediterranean Studies (FORTH) (GR) 6. Baranya County Museum Authority (HU) 7. Institute of Archaeology (IS) 8. Discovery Programme (IE) 9. University College Dublin (IE) 10. University of Foggia (IT) 11. University of Salento (LabTAF), Lecce (IT) 12. University of Siena (LAP&T) (IT) 13. University of Klaipeda (LT) 14. University of Leiden (NL) 15. Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) (NO) 16. Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna (PL)ń 17. Institute for Cultural Memory (CIMEC) (RO) 18. Institute of Archaeology (RS) 19. Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK) 20. Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) (SI) 21. University of Ljubljana (SI) 22. Instituto de Estudos Galeos Padre Sarmiento (ES) 23. English Heritage (UK) 24. University of Exeter (UK) 25. University of Glasgow (UK) 26. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (UK) Associated Partners: 1. University of Vienna (AT) 2. University of West Bohemia (CZ) 3. Estonian Heritage Society (EE) 4. Aalto University School of Science and Technology (FI) 5. National Museum of the Faroe Islands (FO) 6. Université de Franche Comté (FR) 7. University of Applied Sciences - i3mainz (DE) 8. University of Bamberg (DE) 9. University of Frankfurt (DE) 10. Aerial Archaeology Research Group (international) 11. Culture Lab - International Cultural Expertise (BE) 12. Dutch Expertise Centre for Archaeological Remote Sensing (NL/BE) 13. Dundalk Institute of Technology (IE) 14. Latvian Academy of Culture (LV) 15. University of Granada (ES) 16. University of Uppsala (SE) 17. University of Ulster (IE) 18. Landscape & Geophysical Services (IE) 19. Macquarie University, NSW (AU) 20. The DART Project - University of Leeds (UK) 21. Leuven University (BE) 22. Department of Earth and Environment of the Italian National Research Council (IT) 23. University of Zagreb (HR) 24. VU Amsterdam (NL) 25. Moesgaard Museum (DK) 26. The Rathcroghan Heritage Centre (IE) 27. The Landscape Research Centre (UK) 28. Polytechnic Institute of Tomar University (PT) 29. ArchaeoPhysica (UK) 30. University of Bologna (IT) 31. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO) 32. Szczecin University - Institute of History and International Relations, Department of Archaeology (PL) 33. University of California, Merced (USA) 34. Cyprus University of Technology (CY) ... 61 Project Partner from all over Europe
- 97. www.archaeolandscapes.eu ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Roman-Germanic Commission Project Aims • "To increase public appreciation, understanding and conservation ..... • of the landscape and archaeological heritage • of Europe .... • through the application and international sharing of skills and experience .... • in airborne and other forms of remote sensing"
- 98. www.archaeolandscapes.eu ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Roman-Germanic Commission Activities • At least 6 Technical Workshops • More than 4 Aerial Archaeology Training Schools • 2 International Conferences (2013 Dublin, 2015 Frankfurt) • Symposia, Workshops, Meetings, Conference Sessions, ... • Travelling Exhibition (Start: 8th May 2013 in Dublin) • Publications (2 Monographs, Flyer, Conference Papers, Best Practices Guides, ...) • Website http://www.archaeolandscapes.eu (the site will be updated continuously during the 3 coming years of the project) • Grants for Students and Young Researchers to participate in Workshops, Schools and Conferences
- 99. www.archaeolandscapes.eu ArchaeoLandscapes Europe Roman-Germanic Commission Thank you very much for your attention
Notas del editor
- Dear colleagues, in the next 90 minutes or so I will give you an overview about the use of Geographical Information System in Archaeology, based on examples of my last research project on the so-called “ Celtic Princely Sites ” or “ Fürstensitze ” . The project started in 2004 and lasted until 2010, unfortunately I was not able to finish my work yet, due to obligations in my actual project which I will shortly present at the end of my lecture.
- I will start with the definition of those “ Celtic Princely Sites ” and will show you some examples as they might not be so very well-known in Northern Europe. Some information on the data and its use will be followed by examples for GIS analyses and a discussion of the idea of centrality, based again on my GIS analyses. After a short summary I will conclude with a very very brief insight into my current project “ ArchaeoLandscapes Europe ”
- The so-called “ Fürstensitze ” are a well discussed phenomenon in German archaeology. I am not going into detail as regards this discussion as I will focus more on the landscape archaeological aspects of the GIS analysis but a short introduction into their definition might help to understand my research questions.
- There is a long lasting discussion in European and especially German archaeology about the role of these hillforts who have been named as “ Fürstensitze ” especially by Wolfgang Kimmig who published his definition of a “ Fürstensitz ” in 1969. One aspect is the fortification, another the position on an outstanding hillsite. There should be Mediterranean import goods and last but not least there should be large gravemounds with outstanding finds of the nobility, living on the “ Fürstensitz ” nearby. Kimmig and his disciples not only gave a definition of the term “ Fürstensitze ” , they also tried to interpret this kind of settlements as central places, inhabited by the “ reigning nobility ” , having the power and the wealth to participate in a system of long-distance contacts to Italy, Greece and Southern France.
- As most of the sites that I am talking about are very interesting, sometimes beautiful regarding their location within their surrounding landscapes and they usually have brought to light some very interesting features and finds, I will take the opportunity to show you some examples to illustrate these category of sites.
- The most well-known site is the Heuneburg that I already mentioned earlier when describing Paulus definition of a “ Fürstensitz ” .
- The settlement is located above the banks of the river Danube which is a very small stream here.
- The main settlement is surrounded by a rampart which is partially reconstructed as you can see here on this slide
- and a number of rich graves in grave mounds are located in its vicinity. Mediterranean finds have been found in these graves but moreover especially in the settlement itself.
- The rampart fortifies a hilltop settlement which could be described as acropolis while large areas around have been densely populated as some kind of suburbium at least during some periods of the hillfort occupation.
- The Glauberg is slightly younger than the Heuneburg. While the Heuneburg is dated to the Late Hallstatt period, beginning around 750 BC, the main period of occupation – though also occupied in the Late Hallstatt period – is the Early Latène period, starting about 420 BC.
- Again, it ‘ s fortified hilltop settlement with rich graves in its vicinity, some kind of acropolis and suburbium but no Mediterranean goods have been found so far.
- The Ipf, both occupied in the Late Hallstatt and the Early Latène period, is one of the most impressive sites from the landscape point of view.
- A number of settlement sites have been found in its vicinity, some of them most likely directly belonging to the Ipf itself. There are rich graves nearby and moreover, there is a wide range of Greek pottery that has been found during excavations in the recent years.
- Last but not least I would like to mention the Marienberg in Würzburg in northern Bavaria to show you the bandwidth of the sites that are summarised as “ Fürstensitze ”
- The site – nicely situated above the river Main – is nowadays covered by a late mediaeval / early modern times fortification. During excavations traces of an undated fortification have been recovered which could date to the Early Iron Age but could be older or younger as well. Amongst the great number of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age finds a handful of Greek sherds have been discovered but rich graves that could be connected to the hilltop settlement are still lacking. Hinterland reconstructions have shown that the Marienberg could be fed from it ’ s environs but that the production of a agricultural surplus is not very likeley from the settlement itself. From my point of view the relevance of this site was being a trading point, controlling and using the important route along the river Main.
- Before I talk about the data and the methods with which I was working in my project I would like to highlight the main questions of the research programme to the “ Princely Sites ” in which my project was embedded. The main question was “ Is there a concentration of power and if so, are the ‘ Fürstensitze ’ a result or maybe the origin of this concentration of power? ” . Moreover: “ What was the reason for some sites becoming maybe more important and powerful, or at least more wealthy? ” and “ What happened with settlements and societies in the near and further vicinity of the ‘ Fürstensitze ’ ? ”
- For my research, which aimed to analyse these questions from a landscape archaeological perspective with the help of GIS techniques I had chosen a number of areas around some of the “ Princely Sites ” as well as some regions without these extraordinary settlements. These regions were situated in southern Germany (which means the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse) and in western Bohemia and they differed from a landscape or environmental point of view to allow for interregional comparisons.
- The basis for my work were the site management databases of the archaeological heritage management authorities as well as the main publications. They brought to light approximately 5800 settlement and 7700 burial sites from the Late Bronze Age Urnfield period, the Early Iron Age Hallstatt and the Early Iron Age Early Latène period.
- Based on the assumption that the main basis for living during these periods was cattle and crop farming the environmental data mainly consisted of information that was related to agricultural needs of these prehistoric societies.
- Especially the combination of different environmental preferences when choosing a settlement site might give a hint to economical needs, settlement history and environmental behaviour of the prehistoric societies we are dealing with.
- But before getting into the details of some of the examples of GIS analyses that I want to show you I would like to come back to the main questions of the research programme.
- How do we think a settlement hierarchy for the Early Iron Age could have looked like? What role might the „Fürstensitze “ then have played in such a system? Eike Gringmuth-Dallmer described – slightly influenced by Christaller ’ s system of central places – a system, which was based on mediaeval societies and the kinds of functions settlement could have had at that times. It is a model where we could see a “ Princely Site ” on the top of a pyramid with other settlements with lesser functions being inferior or even tributary.
- The question is, if we can see such a system in our archaeological record and if such a system can be transferred to the Early Iron Age in Central Europe. On the one hand I have strong doubts that it is possible in general to find archaeological traces of all the different functions in the settlements due to methodological limitations. On the other hand, even if we could find archaeological evidence for aspects like religion, administration and so on, it seems still too simple to reconstruct Iron Age settlement systems as a pyramid while it seems far more likely that a network of places with different functions, with different meanings and with different relationships among each other and on an interregional level describes the historical situation in the middle of the first millennium BC much better.
- Before I present you some of the GIS analyses that I have been conducting, I would like to show you this citation to highlight the way I understand GIS in general and my approach in special. GIS from my point of view simply is a tool. It ’ s not a method in itself, it won ’ t give answers but it can help to find and analyse patterns, it can help to build models; at least it can transform data into another data which can be interpreted by the archaeologist. And moreover – it does not make the archaeologist useless and it does not take over his thinking – GIS does not have a brain.
- The other important prerequisite of my work is the idea that human behaviour was influenced among other things by the natural environment and that this behaviour – like for instance the decision where to settle – left recognisable and interpretable patterns in the landscape.
- Let ’ s start with some very simple tests that every GIS software is able to calculate. Based on Kimmig ’ s idea of the “ Fürstensitz ” as a prominent site with good active and passive visibility I have calculated the viewshed from the aforementioned Heuneburg (right hand side) as well as from a hill top settlement on the Bussen mountain very close by. The viewshed from the Bussen is much more far reaching and covers a much wider area, the landscape is much better to be seen (and controlled) from the Bussen than from the Heuneburg, where the main focus is on the river Danube which by the way is navigable from here on. In return, also the site on the Bussen is easier to be seen from the surrounding landscape than the Heuneburg site. It ’ s obviously the microregional aspect of access to and controlling of the river as a trading and information route that was of greater importance than the control of the whole surrounding landscape.
- Another site with an allegedly prominent location is the Glauberg. One might argue that the Glauberg itself as one of the mountains situated between the fertile Löß regions of the Wetterau area and the foothills of the Vogelsberg massif is outstanding enough to work as a placemark, a feature in the landscape which helps orientating when approaching it and therefore as trading post or market place. I have calculated the cumulative viewshed from all know settlement sites of the Hallstatt period, the transitional Hallstatt/Early Latène period and the Early Latène period, both with a maximum view of 10 and 20 kilometres. In both cases the visibility of the Glauberg from its contemporary settlements is near to Zero and its obvious that the Glauberg was not a far visible place within its inhabited landscape, at least not for the people who lived there at the same time when the Glauberg had its importance as a “ Princely Site ” . Of course, when approaching the Glauberg from the direct vicinity it really looks impressive and prominent, but obviously this prominence is a matter of distance, or a matter of scale.
- We have seen that the Glauberg hillfort was not situated in the centre of a densely populated area and seems to have played no role as a crystallization point for the colonization. On the other hand there is no doubt that the place had some importance during the Early Iron Age.
- The plateau of an hill of about 8 hectare has been fortified,
- another 12 hectares have been fortified by a rampart and a ditch to incorporate a spring in the north of the plateau
- and the whole area is surrounded by another rampart-ditch system which is only known to a small extend by now but covers at least an area of 206 hectares.
- Part of this fortified or at least demarcated area is a large grave mound in the centre of another ditch system.
- During excavations in the 1990s two cremation of this mound have brought us excellent and rich finds like bronze jugs,
- gold rings,
- weapons and 4 life-sized stone statues of Celtic warriors, chiefs or priests of which one is nearly completely preserved.
- One reason for economic wealth and maybe political and social power might have been an ideal situation of the settlement, favourable to long distance traffic and trading routes. We know from the finds of the Glauberg settlement and in its graves that there were connections between the people living here and people in the middle range mountain areas to north and to the Hunsrück region in the southwest. There were connections even reaching far more east to Bohemia and maybe to the Mediterranean in the south. But is the Glauberg situated in a way that it would be an ideal stopping point, distribution or market place? Standard least cost path analyses with ArcGIS show us that the Glauberg – marked with a red star – is not situated at one of these modeled routes. What you can see here is the result of the least cost path based solely on the slope as cost, connecting areas of the distribution of a specific kind of pottery. Steep areas are avoided which is what we would expect when choosing a route. This is where our considerations started to find the best algorithm to model prehistoric pathways and to question the results of traditional route reconstructions which differ quite obviously from those of the GIS modelling as I will show you in a minute. ------------------- Glauberg -> Hunsrück: ca. 120 km Glauberg -> Norden: ca. 50 km
- When we believe in the results of traditional research methods we can reconstruct the ancient routes like you can see them on the map which is a detail of the map showing the Glauberg (here marked with a star) and its surroundings. The results are based on three main assumptions: Ancient roads follow routes that are well know throughout millennia – there is no noteworthy change from the Neolithic until Iron Age or Roman Age; even modern times routes are based on ancient routes so it is possible to reconstruct the later by projecting back from modern ones. Ancient roads always run along crests of hills and mountains to avoid travelers from crossing too many streams and rivers and from avoiding them to trespass swamps and wetlands in the rivers floodplains. Prehistoric routes follow lines of prehistoric grave mounds and vice versa prehistoric grave mounds were constructed along roads and paths. There is much evidence that these points might have played a role but it seems far to simple to build a model on these theses, especially when the argumentation is a vicious circle .
- One main argument for the use of hilltop paths is the possibility to avoid swampy areas in the floodplain of rivers, being the main flatland area available for routes. We have very clear evidence for the use of bridges, crossing these swampy areas. Besides the use of the waterways themselves there has been the construction of roads in that areas, along rivers, supported by the construction of different kind of bridges, even in prehistoric periods, where maybe no central power was in charge of planning and keeping these constructive elements. The map shows the reconstructed and detected roads of the Iron Age in a Swiss region, on the right hand side you can see the excavation plan of an Early Iron Age Bridge in Bavaria. Talking about roads that have been built, that are under the charge of whatever kind of people, we can neglect the aspect of anisotropy because these routes for to-and-fro-travels use planned roads or at least roads that emerged over a long period, based on the experience of generations. That might differ from routes that developed accidentally, maybe those from the migration periods where complete tribes were crossing Europe without the idea of coming back, so anisotropy could have played a role if existing roads haven ’ t been used.
- Marked in white you can see the results of the isotropic least cost path analysis based on the slope as a cost model. They are part of the routes which connected the sites with that special kind of pottery I showed you a couple of slides ago. As expected they run along the beds of streams and rivers. In red you see again the routes according to the traditional interpretation. The idea is that they run along the hilltops and the crest of the hills.
- If we zoom in we can see the layout of these traditional routes. By no means are they all located on the crest of the hills, especially that blue one south of the Glauberg – again marked with a star – is running up and down the hills whereas the route north of the Glauberg is much more following the ridge. And by the way, none of these roads have ever been found during an excavation.
- Another important argument was that of the burial mounds, connected to the roads and the roads connected to the burial mounds. Lets have a look at the undated and Early Iron Age Burial mounds and check where they are situated. It ’ s quite obvious that most of the mounds have been found in forested areas where they have been preserved from being destroyed by ploughing. Not surprisingly these forests are situated mainly on the hilltops, so if there are burial mounds in the woods, it ’ s most likely that they are placed on the hills. We have very few information on mounds laying in the floodplains due to the lack of intense aerial photography in that area. But we know from other regions that these mounds existed in a large number, nowadays nearly totally destroyed by ploughing.
- Looking at the box-and-whiskers-plot shows exactly where the cat bites her tail: The distribution of burials according to Lloberas prominence index (an index calculating the relative prominence of each pixel in a given DEM grid) on the left is pretty much the same as the distribution of more then 18.000 random points according to it on the right. A significant difference can be seen for those burials within a 1000m-viewshed around the reconstructed roads. They have been reconstructed to be on the hilltops so everything near is on the ridges as well and so the prominence index is significantly higher as well. The argument for the road layout is the vicinity to the burial mounds – but the diagram shows that in most cases especially those burial mounds have been “ connected ” to the route system which lie on hilltops or ridges, there are others that constructed on much less prominent places.
- Routes and roads depend on the aim of the traveller: Trade (carriage, load) Social contact Migration … They depend also on: The climate: Winter/Summer vs. Spring/Autumn Personal/social experience Tradition Regularity vs. “ spontaneity ” There is not one single road or track, there is a large variety of options, based on different needs and circumstances There is no proof of prehistoric roads/routes being the basis of the economic wealth and power of the Glauberg
- So still the question remains: what made this place so special? Part of the „princely site “ of the Glauberg is the ditch-rampart system surrounding the plateau with the main settlement. You can see parts of the ditches here on a LiDAR or Airborne Laserscan - the features known from excavation and geophysics marked in green, the new discovered ditches from the scan marked in red. The blue arrow indicates the reconstructed grave mound on the southern flank of the hillfort.
- On the one hand the layout of the surrounding ditch system includes the rich burial mound (marked here in blue) into the settlement area and places it into the sphere of the living.
- On the other hand the ditch system excludes the burial mound as well, placing it extra muros (which is the usual location of burial sites in that period) into the sphere of the dead.
- The rampart/ditch system shows a double use and perception, both of space and of its borders. The enclosed area is incomplete and permeable and can by no means have served as a fortification. Moreover, the rampart/ditch system consists of several sections which might not have been constructed at the same time so it might be possible, that these fractions of the surrounding enclosure has been dug and erected as some kind of social activity where people from surrounding villages and communities came together at specific dates to work together and to celebrate feeding and feasting activities to strengthen a corporate feeling of the society that belonged to the sphere of the Glauberg.
- The idea of seasonal meetings with social activities, common working, feeding and feasting might relate to a number of extraordinary features that have been discovered during the excavation of the burial mound. This arrangement of ditches and posts has been a complicated and well constructed system which can be interpreted as a calendar building, enabling people to measure time, seasons and also longer periods as it is related to the Southern Moon Standstill which occurs every 18,6 years. It is not unlikely that this might have been the reason for the significance of that exceptional site and it might have been important for people from far away, even farer than the direct hinterland of the settlement.
- The construction of such a complex mathematical and astronomical system can only be done with a certain degree of knowledge that is based on the work of generations of people which we might call priests, druids or whatever. The knowledge, especially the knowledge of time, is something that might be the source of power and therefore someone who had this knowledge and lived and worked on the Glauberg might have been the basis for the central role of the whole Glauberg settlement. This does not mean that I believe that every “ princely site ” can be interpreted as a place with a calendar construction or with a ritual meaning in general. All the other sites we know – maybe with one exception – haven ’ t brought information about these kinds of structures yet .
- Let us go back to the topic of centrality and the central meaning of the “ Fürstensitze ” .
- These “ Princely Sites ” could not have functioned without their environs or their hinterland.
- Investigations of sites and their surrounding is of course one of the main fields of GIS analyses in archaeology. Site catchments are an easy tool to combine sites with their environs and their potential economic hinterland.
- Defining circular borders of such a catchment area is a relatively easy task but usually does not really relate to human behaviour where the boundaries of every day movement and every day activities are more dependent on the terrain and other environmental features. --------------- * M. Chisholm, Rural Settlement and Land Use (London 1962). J. Bintliff, Settlement and Territory. In: G. Barker (ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of Archaeology 1 (London, New York 1999) 505–545. J. Bintliff, Going to Market in Antiquity. In: E. Olshausen/H. Sonnabend (Hrsg.), Zu Wasser und zu Land. Verkehrswege in der antiken Welt. Stuttgarter Koll. Hist. Geogr. Altertum 7, 1999 (= Geographica Historica 17) (Stuttgart 2002) 209–250.
- Most GIS software packages offer cost dependent calculations of a site ’ s hinterland, which means that each point within the catchment area can be reached from the settlement (red spot) with the same maximum effort (time, calorie expenditure, …). The basis in this example is the effort to deal with slopes as well as large streams as a barrier. The size of these cost related hinterland areas are a source of information themselves. Comparing the sizes of these in different regions or between different periods might give an insight about different land use strategies in different landscapes or in different periods.
- An important question when relating “ Fürstensitze ” or other central places with their surrounding areas and settlements is the question of consumer or producer sites. Did the “ Princely Sites ” depend on the surrounding settlements ’ support? Or did they have a larger potential agricultural yield than the “ regular ” settlements and did offer a supply for the surrounding villages?
- And how large was such a hinterland, the area that was the basis for the main economic activities for each settlement? In a first attempt I calculated the area within 1 hour of walking time for all regular settlements and all “ Princely Sites ” . The slide shows on the left hand side the research area of the Marienberg. The red polygons mark the calculated areas for a 60 minutes walk for settlements of the Hallstatt period when the importance of the Marienberg “ Fürstensitz ” reached its climax. The overlapping of most of the areas makes sure that the exploited areas might not only belong to one but to several settlements even when we take into account that many of the settlements from one period – which lasted 300 years – were not coexistent. Social interaction as well as some kind of “ political“ agreements must have been the basis for contemporaneous settlements, using the same economic and cultural hinterland. The picture significantly changes for the areas used for every day farming activities within a distance of 15 minutes walking, which shows that there is a minimum overlapping and I think that mainly an overlapping is to be expected for those sites that are not contemporary existent.
- But maybe such a surrounding area of interest or influence was not just based on economic reasons? Maybe such an area, at least for a “ Fürstensitz ” was also defined in a somewhat more perceptional way? The viewshed around the Glauberg shown here in green is of course depending on the terrain, so no wonder it matches in many areas with a least cost based border, calculated on the basis of the slopes. But more important is the fact, that most of the burial mounds in the vicinity of the Glauberg – though most of them are not dated yet – do lie more or less exactly at the border of the visible zone around the “ Fürstensitz ” , demarcating the area that is under control from the Glauberg. In this case we do not see an economically defined hinterland but an area that is marked by the graves of the ancestors.
- As I am dealing with a remote sensing project at the moment, I would like to take the opportunity to show you as an excursus the results of a LiDAR scan that we have been organising in 2007 in the Glauberg vicinity. Some of the burial mounds that you have seen on the previous slide were unknown to the archaeological state service before this LiDAR flight and could only be discovered with the help of this relatively new technique.
- LiDAR - short for „Light Detection and Ranging “ is measured from the air with radar like laser scans. With the help of a GPS device the coordinates of each measured point on the ground can be calculated with very high precision. One of the big advantages is the possibility to not only measure the surface of the ground in open areas but also in terrain that is covered by bushes or trees. Special filtering algorithms allow to digitally remove these features so that prehistoric grave mounds can be discovered by their height differences even in the woods – which is what we did in the case of the aforementioned burial mounds.
- The picture here shows the LiDAR scan of a Celtic hillfort in the Czech Republic, densely covered with trees and bushes which you can see here as the darker areas.
- After a bit of advanced filtering the vegetation has been removed and the image impressively shows the ditch and rampart system of the hillfort as well as a number of other features.
- But back to the hinterlands of the Celtic “ Princely Sites ” . What do the hinterland areas within 60 minutes walking distance tell us about the site itself, the “ Fürstensitz ” compared to the regular settlements? The diagram shows the median values of the “ hinterland ” sizes of all regular settlements within each of my areas of research (in pink), compared to the size of the hinterland of the “ central place ” itself (in dark red). The median values do not differ so much in the interregional perspective as do the sizes of the “ central places ” surroundings. So first of all we can see that in general the hinterland areas of the regular settlements are more or less comparable, whilst the “ Fürstensitze ” and other important places obviously did differ much more.
- Within the area of the Nördlinger Ries with its sites of the “ Fürstensitz ” Ipf and the two ditch enclosures of Osterholz we can see the biggest spread between the regional mean value and the central places values.
- Only the fortified hillfort Goldberg in the same area appears to be much more like the regular settlements here.
- What do we know about the natural resources in terms of soil quality and other factors directly related to agricultural activities? The Ipf itself has the largest share of soil with low suitability for plant cultivation in its surrounding as well as the smallest share of high quality soils.
- In contrast the availability of good or at least medium soils is much bigger around the ditch enclosures of Osterholz, which is balancing their smaller surrounding areas.
- The Goldberg site with its large hinterland area had a relatively high percentage of good soils as well.
- Indicated in absolute measures we also can see the high availability of suitable soils around the Goldberg, the medium shares around the ditch enclosures and the very low availability around the “ Fürstensitz ” Ipf itself.
- We know that the people in Celtic times made their living mainly by crop and cattle farming so large hinterland areas where the mean values are more or less the same as the value of the hinterland size of the “ special settlement ” itself, are the indication for a mainly agricultural based way of living of the people of the “ Central Place ” . We can assume that for the Goldberg, while the “ Fürstensitz ” on the Ipf itself as well as the ditch enclosures of Osterholz on his foothills seem to have played a different role in the settlement system. The Ipf is more or less a landmark in both a cultural/ritual way and in an economical way as part of a traffic and trading system whereas we have some still very weak evidence that at least one of the Osterholz ditch enclosures might have been a place with a ritual meaning.
- The following aspects are based on my collaboration with the palaeobotanists and archaeozoologists of the “ Fürstensitze ” research programme. I have to apologize for not being able to go into detail here as this is definitely not my field of expertise. Nevertheless, I will try to do my best to explain the biological basis of our calculations. T he results are still preliminary but I hope they might give you a general idea of what we were aiming at.
- When working with the hinterlands as the basis of economic activities, we were thinking about the possibility to calculate the maximum amount of people that could be fed from the output of each settlement ’ s hinterland. In a first step we started working with the hinterlands of some of the “ Princely Sites ” . As you can see, the first models that we were working with, were still using a circular buffer zone for the hinterland calculations. The next step, the adaption of a cost surface based hinterland area, was one of our future tasks. Soil is one of the main factors that have an influence on the potential of any hinterland to produce crops or other food. Based on the data from the Geological Survey of Baden-Württemberg we have recalculated 6 classes of soil, taking also into account climatic factors that had an influence on soil fertility. The data we were using is of course actual data – which might represent lower values than have been available during the Iron Age –, but comprehensive information on the Iron Ages soil and climate is not available. The main outcome of this classification is the allocation of soil values of larger than 40 – based on the so called “ Reichsbodenschätzung ” – being suitable for crop farming. The topography is another parameter which was part of our model calculation. We have allocated the slope values into different classes and have used the rough estimation that land with a slope of more than 10 degrees can not be ploughed or at least ploughing causes erosion effects that had a significantly negative influence on the land.
- The combination of soil values and slope classes leads to a classification of the agricultural potential. For crop farming needs, we calculated up to 5 classes of applicability. Meadows and woods are more suitable for stock farming and a last class represents areas where the available information is too sparse to be taken into account.
- The basis for food supply during the Early Iron Age was mainly crops in different variations. We know of a couple of very intense investigations on the plant remains from several settlement sites from the Bronze and the Iron Age in Baden-Württemberg. These investigations give a good overview of the species that where cultivated, their share in the daily food supply and their popularity during different periods and in different areas. My colleagues from palaeobotany have made various calculations and came to the conclusion that on a very rough scale the nutritional value of the main crop species where quite comparable taking into account the share of the species in the finds from archaeological sites.
- One larger obstacle in our modelling attempt is the problem of soil degradation which is hard to calculate. Nutrients are removed by the growing of plants and have to be replaced depending on the amount of harvested crops per year. This can be done by having an annual change between cultivation and fallow for each field and by putting dung on the fallows. In our model we acted on the assumption that cattle is grazing on the fallows and that dung from stable – if existent at all – is placed manually on the fields as well. We started to calculate with the simplifying assumption of a more or less sustainable cultivation with a balanced nitrogen budget. dt = Dezitonne = 100 kg => 10 dt = 1000 kg
- The first step when calculating the potential of a settlements surrounding is to measure the hectares or potential fields and their classes of soil quality. The cultivation/fallow ratio is a parameter that leads to minimum and maximum values, depending on the chosen ratio. We were well aware that not only grain species have been used as plants for feeding. People used a great variety of leguminous plants or oil seeds as well, especially in the Hallstatt period, the first phase of the Early Iron Age, leguminosae had a high value of steadiness within the various settlements. But on a general level it is possible to estimate their value in the same way as the grains, taking into account their nourishing values, their share in the plant remains in the archaeological sites, and so on. The calorie needs that we are using for our model can be discussed, in this first attempt it is quite low but of course the input from crop can be amended by other plants like vegetables, mushrooms, nuts and so on and of course also by meat as well.
- Our first modelling attempt is – as already mentioned – based on circular surroundings around the investigated sites. Even in this preliminary stage we could already make some statements on the potential of several sites which can be used for their further interpretation. From our point of view the gain of crops in the Iron Age is much lower than the gain of Late Neolithic societies and of course also much lower than in modern times, but it is also higher than during mediaeval times. Based on the coarse assumption that the yield of crops on medium suitable soils is 1000 kilo per hectare per year, we can conclude that the work that is needed for it ’ s production and harvesting equals 110 days of labour. A share of 200 kilo which is the annual amount of crops food per person can therefore be produced by that person within 23 days. We can come to the general conclusion that the expenditure of human labour was not the restricting factor for the production of cereals, especially because it is very likely to assume that work with more or less fixed dates like sowing or harvesting might have been supported by other people of the community that have been released from their usual work for those purposes.
- Given a ratio of cultivation and fallow of 1 to 1 we can first of all see great differences when comparing the four sites of the Heuneburg, of Walheim, of Hochdorf and of the Ipf. The Heuneburg and the Ipf both are classical “ Fürstensitze ” whilst Walheim and Hochdorf represent more or less normal settlement sites – even if Hochdorf is a place of maybe a higher ranking. The surrounding areas of both “ Princely Sites ” could nourish only half of the number of people that could be fed from the Walheim and the Hochdorf hinterland. This picture pretty much matches with the results of the calculations I have shown you in a previous slide, showing that the Ipf was definitely not being able to feed as many people as could the site of the nearby Goldberg.
- Speaking in absolute numbers this means that around 1500 could live from the Ipfs hinterland, 2000 from the Heuneburg and 4000 from Hochdorf. It is hard to evaluate the size of the Heuneburg with it ’ s large suburban settlement but at least for the site of Hochdorf a number of 4000 inhabitants seems to be rather high. This means that either longer periods of fallow resulting in a cultivation:fallow ratio of 1 to 2 or of 1 to 3 would have been possible or that based on cattle and crops a surplus could have been produced as a basis for trade or to be stored for various purposes like feastings, stockpiling and so on. The Ipf might have housed 1500 people but taking into account the sparse knowledge about the settlement structure it seems to be more likely that the number of people living there was much lower, maybe even lower than 800 persons. A surplus production might have been possible only if we calculate a 1 to 1 culti vation:fallow ratio which might have led to a faster degradation of soils. All these calculations do not yet account for the results of the pollen analyses which might change the picture to a certain extent by estimating the amount of land use for cattle, crops and fallows. This is one of our future tasks when refining the model.
- Besides the supply of crops there was of course the use of animal products for nutrition. Due toan ongoing discussion within our team I can only show you first aspects of the potential for producing meat, milk and other animal products. The general idea of the calculation is pretty much the same as for crops. Based on the size of the potential pastures and the carrying capacity the number of livestock units of 500 kg live weight is calculated. Taking into account that horse, cattle, sheep/goat and pig were much smaller during the Iron age than today, the potential numbers of animals were recalculated using the ratios of these species in the investigated settlements. Finally, the ratio of slaughtering, the dressing percentage (Schlachtausbeute) , and the nourishing value of meat and milk are estimated for each species and the food value of milk and meat is determined.
- One main result for our model is the conclusion that only a very low fraction of the daily calorie needs of the people in the settlements could be covered by animal products. But the main use for animal husbandry was the need for proteins in the daily diet as well as secondary products like wool, dung, leather, bones and so on. In the case of cattle we also have to think about using them as draught animals. The amount of animals that are grazing in the vicinity of a settlement has of course a great influence on the soil, especially on the nitrogen values. Also in very woody areas like around the Heuneburg livestock could balance lower disposability of crops to a certain extent.
- Some words on our future work: Of course there are still some aspects that have to be discussed and refined in the model like the problem of soil exhaustion but as we were working with a rather flexible model, this can be adjusted quite easily. I could not show you our data from various pollen profiles but we have already made some attempts to incorporate this data into the model to improve it, based on the information that we can get from the pollen about offsite landscape reconstructions. It was our aim to build a database software that is able to calculate the agricultural potential of any given hinterland in any given period and area with the possibility to change the parameters of the calculation like the calorie needs, the nutrient removal, the periods of fallows and cultivation and so on. In a first stage we were therefore thinking of converting existing Excel spreadsheets into a FileMaker database from which we planned to distribute a runtime version for free.
- As much of the calculation has to be done within a GIS anyway – like the definition of cost based surroundings and the merging of soil and topographic information – it was also our aim to develop a calculation model that runs in the free GIS software gvSIG – but that seems to be a time consuming plan so I am not sure if this will happen in the near future (or at all). Based on the FileMaker database I will try to calculate the agricultural potential not only for the “ Princely Sites ” but also for all others sites that I am dealing with in my project. If I can find appropriate soil data for all my research areas this would mean a calculation of about 5000 settlement sites that can be taken into account and that can be analysed and compared. But all of that would need a lot more time than I actually have ….
- I am sure that prehistoric people made their decisions where to settle most likely mainly depending on their agricultural or economic needs and on the availability of resources in the vicinity of a site. A very dense site distribution therefor shows that in this area the main factors for successful economic activities have been met, whilst gaps might show a lack of one or more basic resources. One of many ways to calculate and visualize densities of point distributions was developed by Andreas Zimmermann and his team from the Cologne University. Without going into further details, his way of generating isolines is based on the principle of the largest empty circle which means it takes into account the radius of all circles with no points – or sites – which are placed between the points. This procedure has it ’ s flaws, it produces so called hinterland effects and ghost areas but for the question of general areas of settlement densities it works quite well. For other questions I recommend to use an alternative procedure that was developed by Irmela Herzog and that is based on a kernel density estimation. As a result of the Zimmermann approach we achieve different isolines where the value of each line is the radius of the largest empty circle. The 5 km-isoline defines an area in which the radius of the largest empty circle – the circle with no points in between the surrounding points – is not larger than 5 km. What is most important is the way to find out the “ ideal ” isoline by calculating the maximum increase of the area surrounded by each isoline. This isoline represents an area of a characteristic settlement density and can be seen as the core area of settling.
- The maximum increase in the surrounded area in the Marienberg area during the Urnfield period can be calculated for the 2 km-isoline; in this area we can find 73 % of all Urnfield settlement sites, concentrating in several “ sub centres ” . In the Hallstatt period we find one large area, defined by the 2.5 km-isoline which contains 83 % of all settlements sites of this period; compared to the Urnfield period the area has doubled. After a dense population in the Urnfield period the number of sites in the Hallstatt period is increasing but more scattered so that we can conclude that new areas have been inhabited. Areas which lie in between the 2 km-isoline of the Urnfield period AND in between the 2.5 km-isoline of the Hallstatt period cover nearly 80 % of the Urnfields core settlement area but only 39 % of the Hallstatt core settlement area. This shows that traditional inhabited areas of the Urnfield period have been used in the Hallstatt period as well and there was the need to use former uninhabited areas. During both periods the “ Fürstensitz ” of the Marienberg, marked here with a rectangle, has never been in the centre of a dense populated area and seems not to have played a role as a crystallization point.
- What about the Glauberg region? Due to the fact that the number of settlement sites from the Early Latène period is to small for relevant statements I added those of the transitional period of the Hallstatt/Early Latène and those of the Early Latène period. You can see the results in purple colour. What we can notice first is the fact that large areas haven ‘ t been settled at all. The number of settlements from the Urnfield period is larger than from the Hallstatt period but the populated areas are nearly the same – what we can understand as a thinning out of settlements, not as a shifting. Once again we can see the central place – the Glauberg “ Fürstensitz ” – at the periphery of the core settlement areas of all three periods and pretty much close to an area of very sparse population.
- What can we say about the reasons of avoiding this area? One very obvious reason for the small number of settlements here seems to be the rather poor soil quality. On the other hand we can see – marked in yellow on the right hand side map – areas of good soil quality with no settlement sites as well. But these areas are in a region with very steep slopes. Again it becomes clear that it is a combination of different environmental factors – most of them connected to aspects of agricultural life – which determine human behaviour when choosing a settlement site. Hinterlands are the basis for economy – and where the environmental factors don ‘ t match the needs of the people, we see differences in the settlement densities!
- The central meaning that the "Princely Sites" might have played in their time and for their territories might have resulted in a central layout of these sites within the landscape. The problem is that we do have very little knowledge on the territories that might have belonged to a "Fürstensitz". We don't know how large they were, on what their layout was based and we don't even know if there was a political territory for each "Princely Site". For the later Iron Age, the era of the large Celtic oppida which Caesar and others have described, we know from the work of Peter Jud that at least in the area of the Upper Rhine Valley between Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland the military control of an area was handled from places near the border of territories and of macrochore regions while the settlement with a central meaning in a social or a more general way must not be visible as such in the archaeological record. Caesar for example mentioned Celtic chiefs that lived and also controlled their tribe from their home village which often was by no means a large oppidum. If the same is true for the Early Iron Age is of course not clear. A border situation on the other hand can be defined in different ways. There might be political, cultural or ethnical borders, there are also macrochore borders that are based on the natural environment – in some cases these different borders might have had the same localisation while in others they might have been totally different. The "Princely Sites" in Southern Germany are always placed close to macrochore borders or to larger rivers – which also might have functioned as borders or at least as separator or as passage. I would like to interpret that as hint that the "Fürstensitze ” might have had a central meaning but not a central position within their landscape. It was the position close to borders or to passages that was important, be it for trading purposes or for other reasons. Natural borders are more or less static while the settlement dynamics from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age is reflecting changing social or political as well as cultural borders so that I would say that at least in this prehistoric periods environmental based regions are not the same as political territories.
- The map shows the diachronic dynamic of settlements in the different regions, where we have landscapes with very different amounts of settlements from the 3 different phases. This is of course a very clear indication for the overall dynamic of what is going on in the Early Iron Age in southern Germany. Coming back to our primary questions of centralisation processes and of patterns of social development, we now know that the situation in the Hallstatt and Early Latène period is much more complex than we have thought it to be, based on the simple model that Wolfgang Kimmig presented in 1969. Do we really see an early urbanization in the "Fürstensitz" phenomenon just because some places seem to become richer and seem to get a more elaborated structure for at least a while? 6 years of research of several projects working together in the “ Fürstensitze ” research programme have brought new insights and a new valuation of the role of those special hillforts. The more or less simple hierarchic model of Kimmig and others has changed into the understanding that we cannot lump the “ Princely Sites ” together. Every site might have had a different basis for it ’ s growth and it ’ s importance, be it trade and the exploitation of resources, be it a surplus agricultural economy or be it the role as a centre for cult and religion – or be it a combination of more than one factor. The cultural and the environmental background of the Early Iron Age societies have been the ideal general framework for the emergence of hillforts with a somehow superior meaning. All the projects of our research programme have all together created a much more differentiated picture of the “ Fürstensitze ” . We don ’ t have a single cause for the centralisation process and we still do not have answers to all questions concerning those “ Princely Sites ” – but maybe that would have been asking too much?
- Before being available now for your questions and a discussion I would like to take the opportunity to shortly introduce you to the current project that I am dealing with.
- Based on the experience that the knowledge and the use of landscape archaeology in general and modern surveying techniques in particular are not evenly distributed all over Europe we have created the ArchaeoLandscapes Europe project, short ArcLand . Wit a budget of 5 Million Euros all in all (which more or less equals to 43 Million Swedish Crowns) we aim to equal these differences and to develop a self-sustaining network that will carry on with this task even beyond the project ’ s life span of 5 years.
- The project consortium so far consists of 61 partner institutions from all over Europe as well as one partner from Australia and one from the USA. These partners represent experts in various fields of remote sensing, geophysics, aerial archaeology, GIS and so on and also partners that act as network hubs in their country or region to act as a multiplicator of knowledge and expertise. The University of Uppsala is representing Sweden in this group of institutions from University, Research Institutions, Heritage Management Authorities, private companies and Museums.
- To cite the words of our project application, we aim "To increase public appreciation, understanding and conservation ..... of the landscape and archaeological heritage of Europe .... through the application and international sharing of skills and experience .... in airborne and other forms of remote sensing ”
- Amongst our main activities are: At least 6 Technical Workshops More than 4 Aerial Archaeology Training Schools 2 International Conferences (2013 Dublin, 2015 Frankfurt) Symposia, Workshops, Meetings, Conference Sessions, ... Travelling Exhibition (Start: 8 th May 2013 in Dublin) Publications (2 Monographs, Flyer, Conference Papers, Best Practices Guides, ...) Website http://www.archaeolandscapes.eu (the site will be updated continuously during the 3 coming years of the project) Grants for Students and Young Researchers to participate in Workshops, Schools and Conferences
- Thank you very much for your attention, I am looking forward to your question and hope we will have an interesting discussion!