The Hallstatt – La Tène model is definitely out!

 1- The Hallstatt - La Tène model

In the early 19th century, historians believed that the Celts had been present in Western Europe since the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.

The discovery of the sites of Hallstatt (1846) and La Tène (1857) allowed historians to recognize the presence of Celts, where Herodotus located them in the fifth century BCE, near the mouth of the Danube.

In 1870, the French Gabriel de Mortillet and the Swiss Emile Desor recognized, among the materials discovered in tombs located near the Etruscan town of Marzabotto, fibulae and swords similar to those they had found in the Champagne tombs, and on the Swiss site of La Tène.

The historical migrations of the Celts to the North of Italy in the 5th - 4th centuries described by Livy were therefore certified by these discoveries.

Historians of the beginning of the 20th century, including the French J. Déchelette, imagined then that the Celtic world expanded from the fifth century, due to migrations of populations of Latenian culture.

Thus the hypothesis of the origin and expansion of the Celts from a central European core was born.

A little later, the Iron Age was divided in two periods, Hallstatt (-850 to -450) and La Tène (-450 to 0), the second culture obviously deriving from the first one.

The hypothesis that the cultures expand with peoples migrations was then applied to the previous period, and it resulted with the following chronological sequence:

The Tumulus culture ® The Urnfield culture ® The Hallstatt culture ® The La Tène culture.

This model was « The model » throughout the 20th century, with some very unfortunate developments (G.Kossinna).

It is yet very common, especially on Internet, to explain the origin and expansion of the Celts, as it is clear and simple.

To sum up this model:

- The Celts appear at the beginning of the 1st millennium with the Hallstatt culture,

- The expansion of the Celts is due to migrations from this Central European core.

 A map example:

 (the same as shown before)

This model is simple but it is wrong.

At least that’s what all the scholars have been writing for the last ten years.

2- Why has the Hallstatt – La Tène model been abandoned?

Here is a list of some of the present scholars that have clearly abandoned the Hallstatt – La Tène (HLT) model:

Miklos SZABO (2009)

Sabine RIECKHOFF (2006):    

It is astounding to see that the J.Dechelette hypothesis remains to the present day the main base of all maps, on which the Celts expand in all the directions from a so-called original land.

Stephen OPPENHEIMER (2010):

The current orthodox view of the origin of the Celts is one of the remaining myths left over from the 19^th century.

Ludwig PAULI

Daniele VITALI (2006): 

The migrationist models that have been in use to solve the Celts presence in Iberia have been abandoned.

John KOCH (2009)

John COLIS (2003):

So why did the Celts have to arrive sometime in the Iron Age? Part of this was due to the concept of the so-called Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, and in 1986 I brought together examples in my paper “Adieu La Tene” and “Adieu Hallstatt” showing how at various times and places the archaeological record had been grossly misinterpreted to fit the preconceived interpretation.

Brian RAFTERY

Barry CUNLIFFE (2010):

A traditional belief, still widely held, is that the Celts originated somewhere in western central Europe, to the north of the Alps, and from there, in a succession of movements over many centuries, spread westwards into Iberia, Britain, ….The time is now right for a new model of “Celtic origins” to be offered.

Patrice BRUN (2005)

Pierre Yves MILCENT (2006):  

The latenian core and the hypothesis of a cultural or ethnic centrifuge model have never existed, if not in the mind of many searchers since the 19^th century.

Venceslas KRUTA (2006):                

The initial core of the Celts was up to the present day identified as the Hallstatt culture. We must fundamentally change our ideas on the origin and expansion of the Celts.

Matthieu POUX (2010)