Dealing with information coming from nineteenth-century discoveries is not always an easy task for archaeologists, and it can prove particularly problematic for iconic findings that have come to characterise entire periods or cultural horizons. Information is very often fragmentary, and in most cases, field methods and recording techniques are not up to present-day standards. A careful re-examination of old collections can, however, often be as fruitful as new findings. This is exemplified by the volumes under review here, which reassess two of the most important archaeological discoveries made in the late nineteenth-century in France: the bronze hoard of Launac in Languedoc and the grave of La Gorge-Meillet in Champagne. In addition to summarising existing knowledge, the volumes also provide new information coming from modern scientific analysis, as well as re-evaluations of certain find categories.
The first volume, Launac et le Launacien, presents several Early Iron Age bronze hoards belonging to the seventh and sixth centuries BC from the region of Lower Languedoc (Bas-Languedoc) in southern France. The volume is structured in nine chapters. Understandably, a central place is given to the deposit of Launac, which gives its name to the entire cultural horizon known as Launacien. This hoard was discovered in 1897, and, despite an initial publication by P. Cazalis de Fondouce in 1900, there was no comprehensive study of its more than 630 pieces (only 485 of which were mentioned by Cazalis). This task is undertaken in the present monograph, the result of collaboration between several leading French scholars. Far from simply reassessing the deposit from Launac, the authors also discuss several other hoards from the same period discovered over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Languedoc. Even with the existence of a certain variability, they all contain some common elements, including the frequent presence of axes, an abundance of jewellery (torcs, bracelets, rings) and the inclusion of bronze ingots. They are therefore classified by the authors as part of the so-called Launacien horizon, present in large areas of Early Iron Age southern France.
While the first chapter (Préliminaires) outlines the aims of the project and the research history of Launac and other related hoards, the following contribution summarises the main object categories present in the bronze deposits. The third chapter represents an exhaustive and richly illustrated catalogue of the deposit of Launac; with more than 80 pages, this is the second longest section in the book. A similarly descriptive format is adopted in Chapter 4, which constitutes a brief inventory of other contemporaneous hoards from southern Gaul. The deposits are structured by modern administrative divisions (departments in the French system): Hérault, Aude, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, Ariège and Pyrénées-Orientales. This is followed by a much longer chapter on metallurgy in the Launacien horizon, centred on the results of new scientific analysis (trace elements, isotopes) carried out on more than 200 pieces. Chapter 6 compares the objects in the Launacien hoards with bronze objects from other sites in southern Gaul, in an analysis structured by object categories. A wider comparative study is undertaken in the following contribution, the longest of the book at nearly 100 pages, in which the finds from Languedoc are put into the wider context of Western Europe. Especially valuable are the numerous high-quality distribution maps by object types. The final two chapters aim to summarise the information from an interpretative perspective.
One of the main achievements of the book is that it looks beyond the Languedoc region, searching for connections with other areas of ancient Gaul and also with selected regions in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast. Although this is mostly due to the presence of some ‘foreign’ objects in the Languedoc hoards, it is also important for gaining a better understanding of the social dynamics that lie behind the deposition practices. Moreover, a particularly important realisation of recent research, also discussed in the present work, is that connections with other Mediterranean communities were not, as had long been presumed, a unidirectional process: numerous Early Iron Age objects from Gaul have been identified in places such as Sicily and Greece (Verger Reference Verger2003; Verger & Pernet Reference Verger and Pernet2013). In summary, this is a very useful volume both in terms of the descriptive presentation of the archaeological material from the Languedoc hoards and for the wider study of Early Iron Age connectivity in the Mediterranean.
The second book under review, Autopsie d'une tombe gauloise. La tombe à char de La Gorge-Meillet à Somme-Tourbe (Marne), represents an up-to-date re-evaluation of one of the most important and famous Iron Age burials from the Champagne region in central-eastern France. The grave was discovered in 1876, and soon after displayed at the Universal Exhibition held in Paris in 1878. Only one year later, the grave goods were acquired by the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, thus becoming an iconic find in the early stages of ‘Gallic’ archaeology (for an overview on the nineteenth-century Iron Age archaeology in Champagne, see Vatan Reference Vatan2004). Dating to the Early La Tène period, and therefore to the very beginning of the Late Iron Age, the burial includes, among other elements, a chariot, weapons, a bronze helmet, horse trappings, and food and drink offerings.
The present volume, edited by Laurent Olivier, curator of the Iron Age collections at the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, includes a preface by Jean-Paul Demoule and contributions from 16 scholars. Although the book is in French, the large number of papers from German authors complementing the French ones makes it an example of fruitful international cooperation. The project was led by Laurent Olivier and Martin Schönfelder, who act as representatives of the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (MAN) and the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseums in Mainz (RGZM). These two institutions have been closely linked since the nineteenth century, and this is also exemplified by the case of La Gorge-Meillet as the finds are displayed in the former and were restored in the latter.
The 22 contributions in the volume cover aspects such as the history of research, the restoration of the grave goods, a study of the human and animal bones—including new isotopic analysis and radiocarbon dates—and the significance of the objects for discussions on early ‘Celtic’ art. In addition to the two aforementioned leading authors, the book includes papers by several other renowned scholars such as Stéphane Verger, Bernard Lambot and Kurt Alt, to name just a few.
The initial thematic section is devoted to the history of research, with chapters on the discovery of the grave and the history of the collection, a biographical approach to the discoverer Édouard Fourdrignier, the sketches and drawings from Émile Gastebois, and the inventory and interpretation work of Alexander Langsdorff and Paul Jacobsthal in the early twentieth century (with interesting reflections on the disparate pathways of the two scholars during the Nazi period). The following section deals with new archaeological studies on the grave and its surroundings, including papers on systematic aerial surveys in the environs of Somme-Tourbe, the rediscovery of the location of La Gorge-Meillet and the re-excavation of the burial complex. The latter has allowed for the recovery of some new material and the production of an amended reconstruction of the grave.
The next two papers are devoted to the historical links between MAN and RGZM, as well as to the restoration work undertaken in the workshops of the latter institution. This short thematic section is followed by several contributions analysing different sources of evidence from La Gorge-Meillet, from the chariot and the horse trappings, to human remains, isotope analysis, organic remains on metal objects, detailed studies of the chicken and horse bones, and new radiocarbon dates. These chapters provide a large amount of new information, revising some traditional interpretations on the burial, its chronology and the attributions of the grave goods to the two central inhumations found in it. The final contributions address the role of the burial within early ‘Celtic’ art and the development of ‘Gallic’ archaeology in France. The volume concludes with a richly illustrated catalogue of all the objects from the 1876 excavation. The final abstracts in French, English and German make the core information available to a large international readership.
Overall, this is an excellent book that provides both a useful summary of the previous evidence and copious new data, mostly coming from recent scientific analysis. It is thus an example of the potential for reassessing old finds through new approaches and methodologies. It would have been beneficial, however, to add an overview chapter on the phenomenon of Early La Tène chariots graves in Champagne. That the Iron Age archaeology of this region can still provide spectacular surprises is demonstrated by the recent discovery of the rich grave of Lavau (Dubuis et al. Reference Dubuis, Josset, Millet and Villenave2015). The latter's publication should mark a new milestone in mortuary archaeology studies in France and beyond.
To sum up, the two volumes discussed here represent an important reassessment of old collections that shed new light on Iron Age Gaul. There is huge potential in the re-evaluation of nineteenth-century findings, and in this sense it is worth mentioning the work developed by institutions such as the RGZM; this archaeological research and restoration centre, one of the most prestigious in Central Europe, has a strong tradition in publishing new studies of old discoveries (for the Iron Age, see e.g. Egg Reference Egg2013; Bardelli Reference Bardelli2017), and its collaboration in the present volume on La Gorge-Meillet is a further example of this line of research. The history of archaeology is a story of new discoveries, but also of looking with new eyes and new techniques to old findings from the early days of the discipline.
