Quantitative Identities: A Statistical Summary and Analysis of Iron Age Cemeteries in North-Eastern France 600-130 BC (BAR International)

The large amount of cemetery data available from the Upper Seine Basin is exploited here in this study of regionality, gender and social differentiation, and cultural behaviour in the Iron Age. Analysing evidence such as body positioning and artefact placement, rather than the objects and human remains themselves, Thomas Evans looks for patterns in cultural behaviour and examines the ways in which people represented their identity in death. He concludes that a single cultural identity can be discerned from the evidence. This identity shows a lack of clear gender division, a growing emphasis on warfare and all its accoutrements (whether for real or symbolic purposes) through time, and that a system of prestige exchange was operating during the final Hallstatt and ealy La Tène periods.

Thomas L. Evans