Battlefields

For all of the evidence of weaponry in graves and in deposits, and the fortified hilltop sites, including the oppida with their massive walls, the direct evidence of violence is relatively sparse.

In Julius Caesar's account of the Gallic War the final major battle between united groups of Gauls and the Roman army took place at the site of Alesia in central France in the year 52 bce.^[304] Excavations on the site have yielded a wide variety of weapons of the time, including swords, spears, lances, arrowheads and helmets.^[305] The majority of the weapons recovered through excavation are of characteristic Iron Age types, not Roman. This aspect may reflect the fact that many of the soldiers fighting on the Roman side were members of Iron Age groups who were allied with, or conquered by, Rome. The fewer typical Roman weapons are predominantly of types that were thrown from a distance rather than weapons that were employed at close range.

At the northern end of a pass through the Alps into southern Bavaria, the site of Dottenbichl has yielded large quantities of both Iron Age and Roman types of weapons.^[306] Among the Roman weapons are iron cata­pult bolt points, at least one bearing the insignia of the 19th Legion - leg xix - providing strong evidence for the presence of that unit.

Since excavations that began in 1987, the site of Kalkriese in northern Germany has yielded strong evidence that it is where what has become known as the ‘Battle of the Teutoburg Forest' took place in the year 9 ce.^[307] A number of Roman and Greek sources mention this battle, at which three legions, the 17th, 18th and 19th, and many accompanying units of troops were virtually wiped out by local fighters under the command of a native leader called Arminius by the Romans. Excavations have recovered thousands of weapons and pieces of mili­tary equipment, the great majority of them of Roman type, as well as over 1,000 coins. In addition to slingstones, lanceheads, daggers, swords, chainmail and helmets, bones of mules, horses and humans have been recovered. The local topography of the battle site corre­sponds roughly to that described by the ancient authors. Archaeologists have studied the locations of different weapons and remains of equip­ment, such as nails from Roman soldiers' sandals, to reconstruct the progress of the battle.

At the site of Cadbury Castle in Gloucestershire in England, archae­ologists have recovered both skeletal evidence and weapons that indi­cate a military event that took place sometime around the middle of the first century ce, perhaps corresponding to the Roman conquest of Britain, which began in 43 ce.^[308] Human bones of some twenty-eight individuals were uncovered, along with local Iron Age and Roman weapons, and many local brooches, or fibulae.

Texts

We do not possess any written information about war or military activity from the Iron Age peoples of temperate Europe themselves to supplement the evidence of burial, deposition, military architecture, battlefields and bog bodies. We do possess, however, written information from their southern neighbours, the Greeks and Romans. We must approach these sources with great caution, though, because they come from people who did not under­stand the historical development of the peoples about whom they were writing, and in most cases they regarded the Iron Age peoples as enemies. Nonetheless, these texts constitute a source that must be considered.

In the fourth and third centuries bce writers inform us of the service of ‘Celtic' mercenaries in armies in lands of the eastern Mediterranean, noting that they were known as exceptionally fierce fighters.^[310] The sources do not tell us what they mean when they designate them as Celts, nor do they say from what part of Europe they came.

The most detailed account of Iron Age military activity is that in Julius Caesar's account mentioned above. From him we learn about the defensive aspects of the oppida, the fighting tactics of the Gauls, as well as many details about the Gallic way of life. The weapons he describes match closely those found in burials and deposits. In recounting his invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 bce, he describes the Britons fighting from chariots, and chariots have been found in Iron Age burials there.