La Tène is a
protohistoric archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...
on the northern shore of
Lake Neuchâtel
Lake Neuchâtel ( ; ; ) is a lake primarily in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The lake lies mainly in the canton of Neuchâtel, but is also shared by the cantons of Vaud, Fribourg, and Bern. It comprises one of the lakes in th ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. Dating to the second part of the
European Iron Age it is the
type site
In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and H ...
of the
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture (; ) was a Iron Age Europe, European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BC to the Roman Republic, Roman conquest in the 1st century BC), succeeding the early Iron Age ...
, which dates to about 450 BCE to the 1st century BCE and extends from
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
to
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
and from
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
to
Czechia. La Tène is listed as a
property of national significance.
Location
The site is located in the ''
lieu-dit
''Lieu-dit'' (; plural: ''lieux-dits'') (literally ''location-said'', "named place") is a French language, French toponymic term for a small geographical area bearing a traditional name. The name usually refers to some characteristic of the plac ...
''
La Tène, which is related to the Latin ''tenuis'' evoking the shallow waters of the lake's northernmost extremity. It is also the point where the
Thielle
The river Thielle (, ), is a tributary to the Aare, in the Swiss Seeland.
The Thielle results from the merging of the Orbe and Talent, northeast of the little city of Orbe in the Swiss canton of Vaud. It flows as a channel northeastwards thro ...
river leaves the lake and flows in the direction of
lake Biel. Being constantly in the vicinity of the lake, the
artifacts were marked by the changes in the lake level.
Research history
Discovery
The site of La Tène was discovered in 1857 during a period dubbed the "lake dwelling fever" (in
French: ''"fièvre lacustre''"). Pile-dwellings were found on the banks of many Swiss lakes, most of the time with the collaboration of scientists and fishermen. In November 1857, fisherman Hans Kopp was sailing to a Neolithic dwelling near
Concise from
Lake Biel under orders from Colonel Friedrich Schwab when he spotted an interesting spot near
La Tène. He stopped and started investigating, and within an hour he had found around forty iron objects, among which were eight
spear
A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with Fire hardening, fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable materia ...
heads and twelve
sword
A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...
s.
At that time, that is before the
Jura water correction
The correction of the waters of the Swiss Jura consisted of a wide series of hydrological undertakings carried out in Switzerland in the region of the three lakes: Lake Murten connected to Lake Neuchatel by the Broye Canal, the latter connec ...
, the lake level was 2.7 m higher, and therefore, the site was 60 to 70 cm underwater. The discoveries made by Kopp went into Friedrich Schwab's private collection until his death, when they were given to the city of
Biel/Bienne
Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German language, German: ''Biel'' ; French language, French: ''Bienne'' ; Bernese German, locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the ...
.
The first scholars studying the site, Colonel Friedrich Schwab and
Ferdinand Keller, did not consider the site of particular interest. However, when
Édouard Desor, professor of geology and paleontology, heard of the discoveries, around a year later, he immediately realised the potential of La Tène within the
Three-age system
The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory (with some overlap into the history, historical periods in a few regions) into three time-periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, although the concept may also re ...
. In 1866, the first
International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology took place in Neuchâtel, Desor advocated the site of La Tène as the reference for the prehistoric
Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
. A few years later, during a later meeting of the congress in
Stockholm
Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
, it was decided to divide the Iron Age in Europe in two periods. The first was labelled
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western Europe, Western and Central European archaeological culture of the Late Bronze Age Europe, Bronze Age (Hallstatt A, Hallstatt B) from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and Early Iron Age Europe (Hallst ...
, from a site located in Austria. The second Iron Age (from around 450 BCE to
25 BCE) was named after the site of La Tène, and thus called the
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture (; ) was a Iron Age Europe, European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BC to the Roman Republic, Roman conquest in the 1st century BC), succeeding the early Iron Age ...
.
Early excavations (1880s–1917)
The site was quickly noted for the quality of the artifacts that were found. After Desor and Schwab, La Tène attracted other archaeology amateurs like Alexis Dardel-Thorens and Victor Gross. It also attracted many looters. Around
1870
Events
January
* January 1
** The first edition of ''The Northern Echo'' newspaper is published in Priestgate, Darlington, England.
** Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge are completed.
* January 3 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge be ...
, the first
Jura water correction
The correction of the waters of the Swiss Jura consisted of a wide series of hydrological undertakings carried out in Switzerland in the region of the three lakes: Lake Murten connected to Lake Neuchatel by the Broye Canal, the latter connec ...
brought the lake level 2.7 m lower, and the site which was believed to be exhausted proved to have more to be found. With the lowered water, the site's topography became much easier to understand; this led to the discovery of the remains of two bridges over an old branch of the
Thielle
The river Thielle (, ), is a tributary to the Aare, in the Swiss Seeland.
The Thielle results from the merging of the Orbe and Talent, northeast of the little city of Orbe in the Swiss canton of Vaud. It flows as a channel northeastwards thro ...
river as well as buildings of an undetermined function.
During the 1880s, while excavations were conducted by Emile Vouga, the organisation of the site was clarified but the interpretation remained unclear. In 1907, on an initiative of the History and Archaeology society of Neuchâtel with a support from the Canton of Neuchâtel, a well organized excavation started. The excavation, led by William Wavre and then Paul Vouga (1909), consisted in systematically emptying the old river Thielle bed. This methodical excavation lasted until 1917 and brought to light a large corpus of remarkably culturally similar artifacts. Six years later, Vouga published a monograph in the form of a typological inventory of the excavation discoveries where he did not try to suggest an interpretation of the site's function. The publication was considered disappointing, because Vouga did not use techniques that were already known at the time, such as studying the site's
stratigraphy
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...
. However, Vouga's monograph remains useful for the chronotypological studies of the
second Iron Age.
During the following years, the interest for the site declined because of the difficulty of interpretation. However, many hypotheses were proposed: cult site, sacrificial site, theories concerning the large number of bent or broken weapons and the humans and animals skeletons that were found. La Tène remains a particularly difficult site to interpret, mostly due to three major problems:
* The large dispersion of the discoveries: due to the site's notoriety and the amount of looting that occurred, the La Tène's artifacts are scattered around a large number of museums and scientific institutions
* An inequality of the documentation
* A complex topography: the influence of the lake's changing levels and the constructions on the archaeological zone
Resumed excavations
The Neuchâtel Department of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology (''Office du Patrimoine et de l'Archéologie, OPAN'') organized a
rescue excavation when construction works took place in the nearby camping area. The dig took place through already excavated layers backfilled by Paul Vouga and its aims were to obtain a precise stratigraphy and to date the already known structures.
A new project led by professor
Gilbert Kaenel was launched in 2007, with the support of the
Swiss National Science Foundation
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, German: , SNF; French: , FNS; Italian: ) is a science research support organisation mandated by the Swiss Federal Government. The Swiss National Science Foundation was established under private law b ...
, the
University of Neuchâtel
The University of Neuchâtel (UniNE) is a French-speaking public research university in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The university has four faculties (schools) and more than a dozen institutes, including arts and human sciences, natural sciences, ...
and the Neuchâtel Department of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology (''Office du Patrimoine et de l'Archéologie, OPAN''). The project aimed to establish an inventory of the
artifacts and
archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...
s concerning the site, to confront them to the results of the 2003 excavation and to stimulate cooperation between the museums in possession of the La Tène discoveries as well as encouraging works about certains categories of artifacts. The project has led to the publications of the La Tène collections from the
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire of Geneva, the
Bern Historical Museum
The Bern Historical Museum (, ) is the second largest historical museum in Switzerland. It was designed by the Neuchâtel architect André Lambert and built in 1894.
Since it was initially conceived as the Swiss National Museum (which the city ...
and the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
based on a model establish by Thierry Lejars for the Schwab museum in
Biel/Bienne
Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German language, German: ''Biel'' ; French language, French: ''Bienne'' ; Bernese German, locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the ...
.
Discoveries
The excavations on the site of La Tène led to the discovery of around 2500 artifacts, including offensive and defensive weapons in iron or wood(
sword
A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...
s and
scabbard
A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, dagger, knife, or similar edged weapons. Rifles and other long guns may also be stored in scabbards by horse riders for transportation. Military cavalry and cowboys had scabbards for their saddle ring ...
,
spear
A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with Fire hardening, fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable materia ...
s,
arrowhead
An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, or sometimes for special purposes such as signaling.
...
s, a
bow and
shield
A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...
s),
tool
A tool is an Physical object, object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many Tool use by animals, animals use simple tools, only human bei ...
s for industry and agriculture (
axe
An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...
s,
scythe
A scythe (, rhyming with ''writhe'') is an agriculture, agricultural hand-tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It was historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains before they underwent the process of ...
s, knives and a wooden
plow
A plough or (Differences between American and British spellings, US) plow (both pronounced ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but modern ploughs ...
),
horse harness
A horse harness is a device that connects a horse to a horse-drawn vehicle or another type of load to pull. There are two main designs of horse harness: (1) the Breastplate (tack)#Harness, breast collar or breaststrap, and (2) the Horse collar, ...
es, rings and brochs in iron or bronze, pieces of cloth, a few
pots and different
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foot ...
and
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of Roman civilization
*Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
coinage.
The artifacts discovered in La Tène are now dispersed around the globe, many of which have been illegally sold, which means completing a thorough inventory is extremely hard. Nonetheless, the majority of the objects are kept between the
Swiss National Museum
The Swiss National Museum () is a museum in Zurich, Switzerland's largest city, adjacent to Central Station and the '' Platzspitz'' park. It is part of the ''Musée Suisse Group'', which is itself affiliated with the Federal Office of Culture ...
in
Zürich
Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
and the archaeology museum of the Canton of Neuchâtel, the
Laténium in
Hauterive. Part of Colonel Schwab collection is kept in the Schwab Museum in
Biel/Bienne
Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German language, German: ''Biel'' ; French language, French: ''Bienne'' ; Bernese German, locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the ...
and has been the subject of a thorough monograph.
References
{{Authority control
Archaeological sites in Switzerland
Iron Age sites in Europe
La Tène culture
Archaeological type sites
1857 establishments in Switzerland