Booze and Bling

          “If you wanted to get ahead in Iron-Age Central Europe you would use a strategy that still works today -- dress to impress and throw parties with free alcohol” (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012).

This statement is whole-heartedly the best catcher I have ever come across. Why, you might ask? Well it is the perfect synthesis of humour and wit which clearly lures you into reading their article! None the less, that is not my task. I want to discuss this fascinating article!

Not only is this article wonderfully written, including many modern day analogies but it also includes some of the new modern day techniques that are used in the realm of archaeology. Not to mention, this article is also great testimony to the extraordinary work that comes from collaborations of University’s and other organizations.

Professor Bettina Arnold excavates Iron-Age burial mounds in southwest Germany of the Pre-Roman Celts. 

 The article talks about how the Pre-Roman Celtic people used to eagerly compete with their opponents for social and political status within their society, which was achieved with who-can-throw-the-best-party logic, through something Bettina Arnold, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and co-director of the field excavation, calls “competitive feasting” (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012). Some of the artifacts recovered from the site include things like vessels for alcohol, and pieces of personal adornment, such as bracelets and hairpins.

Looking at the vessels that had once contained alcohol, they were able to decipher what alcohol the people at the time were actually drinking, which is an obvious clue of the person’s social status. The article indicates that a honey-based wine, or mead, flavoured with herbs, which was made by the Celts themselves, would have been about middle rank, less than wine but more than beer. If the person had actual grape wine, it was a dead giveaway that the person of elite ranking. This is evident because grapes hadn’t been introduced yet to central Europe. Aside from the actual alcohol you consumed, the quantity was just as important as the quality. This conclusion was revealed with the unfolding of colossal cauldrons at the site, one of which could hold 10 pints!

The Celts were also have said to be the flashy fashionistas of the time period, coming from the Greeks and Romans. Despite the claims, it’s been really hard to prove, as cloth and leather don’t preserve. But because this site is so wonderful, they found some evidence of their swanky attitude and appearance!  Even though no bones did preserve, due the super acidic soil, the archaeologists on site were able to recover some hairpins, jewelry, weapons and clothing fasteners. One of the new techniques that is used in this article is casting fragile fossils or remains encased in blocks of earth and then placed in plaster and run through computerized scans. This technique was used to date these dainty artifacts.

Arnold also says that they "found fabulous leather belts in some of the high-status women's graves, with thousands of tiny bronze staples attached to the leather that would have taken hours to make.” She also states that she likes to call them the “Iron-Age Harley-Davidson biker chicks." This idea connects directly to Arnold’s next statement which insists that “"you could tell whether someone was male, female, a child, married, occupied a certain role in society and much more from what they were wearing." With these artifacts, they were able to work out the gender specific adornment. To their surprise, they were also able to save some of the textiles in the grave that were in close proximity with metal implements. From these samples, archaeologists were then able to recreate there colours and patterns of textiles with the use of microscopic inspection.

The article then strongly closes by saying “when you can actually reconstruct the costume, all of a sudden these people are ‘there’ – in three dimensions. They have faces. They can almost be said to have personalities at that point.” With modern day society and their very similar concepts to the Celts, in terms of bling and booze, will we be the exciting find for an archaeologist some day? 

This article can be found at the following website, which I strongly encourage you to read!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120319163710.htm