Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1980 - 11

overland by pack animal. All in all, the Hallstatt
operation was a smoothly run, productive industry.
centers like the Heuneburg and the
^Llthough
Hohenasperg share a concentration of economic activity new to central European sites with Hallstatt,
the Alpine mining center was different from the
others in some important respects. At the Heuneburg a wide range of economic activities were carried out, whereas at Hallstatt only one substance
was important to the life of the community - salt.
The Heuneburg, the Hohenasperg and comparable
centers in France and Switzerland, are situated in
agriculturally rich areas. Inhabitants of those centers, or of the smaller communities around them,
could provide plant and animal foodstuffs to sustain
the chieftains, craftspeople, merchants, and other
specialists not producing their own food. In the
mountains around Hallstatt, on the other hand,
very little level ground is available, and what there
is lies in the shade much of the day. Most of the
daily provisions for the Hallstatt miners therefore
had to be carried in from some distance. The
maintenance of this highly specialized salt-mining
community required considerable organization and
planning.
The fruits of this specialization are apparent in
the graves at Hallstatt. Although none of those yet
excavated is as richly outfitted with gold and
Mediterranean luxury imports as the one at Hochdorf, the graves at Hallstatt are richer as a whole
than those at other cemeteries in central Europe.
Among the objects found in many graves are long
swords of bronze and iron, ornate daggers, battleaxes, bronze vessels of various types, bronze jewelry, and a range of materials imported from other
parts of Europe. The general standard of wealth in
the graves attests to the material rewards of the
salt trade.
Since salt dissolves in water, it does not survive
in the archaeological record at most sites. In order
to study the directions of the salt trade from Hallstatt, one must look at the imports in the graves.
These indicate regular contacts with areas to the
north and west, particularly modern-day Upper
Austria and Bavaria. Similarities in pottery forms
and decoration and in metal objects suggest that
many such goods were being traded from these
areas to Hallstatt in exchange for salt. Connections
with more distant lands are also evident. A variety
of objects in the graves at Hallstatt are imports
from Slovenia - a land across the Alps to the southeast characterized by Alpine foothills and fertile
river valleys that saw the emergence of active industrial and commercial centers such as Sticna,
Magdalenska gora, and Vace in the Early Iron Age.
Glass vessels and an ornamented bronze lid indicate trade contacts with northeast Italy. Several
graves also contained swords whose pommels were
made of ivory, probably brought from Africa via the
commercial centers of northeast Italy. Amber from
the Baltic region is especially abundant in the

graves, particularly beads strung together as a
necklace.
Salt is a necessity for all human beings and has
long been important as a preservative for meat and
fish. Its importance to Early Iron Age Europe is
reflected in the wealth and variety of grave goods at
Hallstatt and in the scale of the mining operations
there. All of the archaeological evidence leads to the
conclusion ¿hat salt from Hallstatt was being
traded to numerous small farming communities
throughout Upper Austria and Bavaria, as well as
the major commercial centers of the type of the
Heuneburg and the Hohenasperg and their counterparts south of the Alps in Italy arid Slovenia. The
profits gained in the salt trade led to the development of the highly organized mining operations at
Hallstatt. Intensification of trade in Iron Age central Europe had two principal effects. First, it contributed to economic growth, and second it greatly
increased interactions between communities and
whole societies. Within central Europe, the archaeological evidence shows new active commerce in a
wide range of materials during the latter part of the
Early Iron Age. The enormous expansion of trade
and industry in central Europe documents a steady
flow of goods and people, and is the outstanding
feature of this dynamic period in European prehistory.
For Further Reading on the Early Iron Age in central Europe: H.G.H. Harke, Settlement Types anil Set*
tlement Patterns in the WestHaUstatt Province (British
Archaeological Reports, Oxford 1979),provides ¿
catalogne and discussion of known settlement of
the period; H. Jankuhn» Vor-undFrühgeschichte vom
Neolithikum bis zur Völkerwanderungszeit (Eugen
Ulmer, Stuttgart 1969),discusses different aspects of
the economy of the period; G. Kossack, Südbayern
während der Hallstattzeit (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin
1959), is a detailed and precise study of the Early
Iron Age in southern Bavaria.
On trade and the rise of the centers: P.S. Wells,
CuUure Contact and Culture Change: Early Iron Age
Central Europe and the Mediterranean World(University of Cambridge, England 1960).
On the excavation at Hochdorf: J. Biel, "Das
frühkeltische Fürstengrab von Eberdingen-Hochdorf, Landkreis Ludwigsburg," Denkmalpflege in
Baden-Württemberg 7 (1978): 168-175and "Treasure
from a Celtic Tomb," National Geographic 157 (1980):
428-438.
On the Heuneburg: W. Kimmig, "Early Celts on
the Upper Danube: the Excavations at the Heuneburg," in R. Bruce-Mitford, editor, Recent Archaeological Excavations in Europe (Routledge and Kegan
Paul, London 1975):32-64.
On the cemetery at Hallstatt- W. Angeli, "Die Erforschung des Gräberfeldes von Hallstatt und der
*
'Hallstattkultur,'
Krieger und Salzherren (RömischGermanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz 1970):14-39;
K. Kromer, Das Grüberfeld von HaUstatt (Sansoni,
Florence 1959).
On the importance of salt to human life and
history: M.R. Bloch, "The Social Influence of Salt,"
Scientific American 209 (1963):89-98.

October1980
September/

Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1980

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1980