from the fields, which were tossed to the side against the wattlework fences-together with minute quantities of soil attached to their root clusters. As a consequence of this chain of events, over the course of centuries, banks of anthropogenic sediment came to enclose fields within the Celtic field landscapes.

The Celtic field research programme of Groningen University involves research excavations of Dutch Celtic fields or raatakkers: embanked field plots thought to date to the Iron Age (c. 800 cal bc–12 bc). In this paper, detailed attention is given to (a) the palaeoecology of raatakkers; (b) the relationship between habitation and agriculture in such systems; and (c) their dating and use-life. Counter-intuitively, it is argued that the macro-remains from crops such as barley, wheat, millet, and flax recovered from Celtic field banks represent a non-local (settlement) signal rather than document local agricultural regimes. Palynological approaches, in which a more local signal can be preserved but which also show evidence for details of the agricultural regime such as manuring strategies and fallow cycles, are argued to be more appropriate avenues to study local agricultural strategies. A discussion of the relations between habitation and agriculture shows that house sites uncovered within Dutch Celtic fields are almost invariably placed in positions partly overlapping banks. Moreover, in most cases such settlement traces appear to date to the Middle or Late Iron Age, raising the question of where the initial farmers of the Celtic fields lived, as the communities planning and first using these Celtic fields probably pre-dated the Iron Age. A critical review of existing dates and discussion of new OSL and AMS dates has shown that bank construction of Dutch Celtic fields started around the 13th–10th centuries cal bc and continued into the Roman era. The chronostratigraphies preserved in the banks testify to a sustainable agricultural regime of unprecedented time-depth: centuries of continued use make the system employing raatakkers the most enduring and stable form of farming known in the history of the Netherlands.

This contribution deals with the bronze bracelets found in the Netherlands that are datable between the Late Neolithic and the Middle Iron Age (n=176). We study their context (hoards, funerary contexts, settlements and stray finds), and we relate the specifics of their form and decoration to regional and supraregional traditions. First, we study their role as social signifiers (in reconstructions) of prehistoric identities across those scales, discussing how particular Bronze Age ‘costumes’ or ‘ornament sets’ may have been kept from graves and deposited in alternate ways. Then, we study later prehistoric arm-rings for their potential to indicate the scale, orientation and longevity of supraregional contact networks into which the later prehistoric communities of the Netherlands were integrated.

No abstract

Discussions on the presence, nature and apparel of (presumed) European Bronze Age warriors has traditionally focused on weapon graves, armour and rock art – the latter two regrettably absent in the Low Countries. This means that for this area, warrior identities need to be reconstructed on the basis of funerary assemblages that may even lack actual weapons. Since Paul Treherne’s seminal (1995) paper, particularly razors and tweezers have been recognized as reflecting the personal care typical of the warrior life-style. In this paper, Bronze Age and Early Iron Age razors and tweezers from the Netherlands are discussed as part of their wider West-European distribution. Razors of different shapes (pegged, tanged, symmetrical and asymmetrical) can be shown to date to different phases in the period of c. 1600 – 600 BC. Moreover, in variations in handle and blade shape, regional groups and supra-regional contact networks can be identified. Tweezers too show ample diachronic and regional variations: in addition to presumably local types, Nordic and Hallstatt imports are discernible. Razors and tweezers were part of toilet sets that differed in meaning and composition within the time-frame of 1600-600 BC. We argue that the short-hafted awls frequently found in association may represent tattooing needles. In the Hallstatt period, nail-cutters and ear-scoops complement the set (now often suspended from a ring and worn in leather pouches closed with rings or beads).Contextual analysis of the objects shows that razors could be placed in hoards, yet most originate from graves. Several urnfield razors (and some tweezers) originate from funerary monuments that must have stood out for their age, shape or dimensions (e.g. older tombs, long-bed barrows), hinting at a special status for those interred with the toilet sets. Remarkably, the association of razors and tweezers with weapons is infrequent for the Low Countries during most phases of the Bronze Age. Associations with swords are limited to the Ploughrescant-Ommerschans dagger from the famous Ommerschans hoard and the Gündlingen sword from the Oss chieftain’s grave. This means that in the Low Countries, a pars-pro-toto approach to the expression of warrior identity prevailed – one in which the interment of toilet sets instrumental to the expression of warrior identity took precedence over the interment of weaponry.