Early European Cultures - Atlantic Bronze Age

This late Bronze Age metalworking industry (or 'tradition') developed in Europe on the western coast of France (specifically between Brittany and Gironde). Dates are somewhat movable, with a start of about 1300 BC or 1000 BC being offered, and a concluding date of about 700 BC or 500 BC. It quickly expanded from its core in Early France to reach southern Britain and the Iberian peninsula during the Iberian Bronze Age.

It was an umbrella tradition rather than a specific single culture, but it did generate or influence several regional cultures within its maximum area of expansion. It was preceded by the European Bell Beaker culture, the Bell Beaker in Britain, the Armorican Tumulus culture, and the Wessex culture. All of these were replaced by the Atlantic Bronze Age (ABA), with its arrival in Britain notably seeming to coincide with the arrival of the earliest wave of early Celtic settlers to create the origins of Prydein.

The unifying factor within these areas was very active trading along the Atlantic seaways. A large number of hoards have been found for this tradition, with typical products being the carp's tongue sword, end-winged axe, hog-backed razor, and a bugle-shaped object of uncertain function. The tradition flourished between the Atlantic coast and the various Central European Urnfield cultures which presaged the appearance of true Celts of the Hallstatt culture.

The ABA is marked by economic and cultural exchange which led to the high degree of cultural similarity which has been exhibited by coastal communities from as far afield as central Portugal and Spanish Galicia, Armorica, Cornwall, and Scotland, including the frequent use of stones as chevaux de fries, the establishment of cliff castles, or the domestic architecture which is sometimes characterised by roundhouses. Commercial contacts extended from Sweden and Denmark to the Mediterranean.

The period was defined by a number of distinct regional centres of metal production, unified by a regular maritime exchange of some of their products. The major centres were southern England and ancient Ireland, north-western France, and western Iberia (involving the Asturian-Cantabrian Bronze, the Galician Bronze, the Western Bronze (which absorbed the spent Vila Nova de Sao Pedro), and the Atalaia horizon in north-western Spain, western Portugal, south-western Portugal and Spain respectively). As one historian has remarked, this only happened at the end of the late Bronze Age.

Many items which relate to this period have been found in what are termed ritual areas, usually bearing watery contexts, such as rivers, lakes, and bogs. Comprising the more noted items which belong to this cultural complex are weapons such as the socketed and double-ring bronze axes, sometimes having been buried to form large hoards in Brittany and Galicia, plus lunate spearheads, v-notched shields, and a variety of bronze swords - with carp's-tongue swords included here - usually to be found in lakes, rivers, or rocky outcrops.

In addition there is the feasting gear of the elites, which includes articulated roasting spits, cauldrons, and flesh hooks which are to be found as far afield as central Portugal and Scotland.

Over recent years there has been much scholarly debate regarding this period, including contentious and highly-inaccurate claims that the West Indo-European proto-Celtic language began along the Atlantic coast and moved inland by way of Europe's major rivers. Such claims are not supported by the majority of scholars, or even by basic language analysis.

Even despite this unnecessary layer of confusion, historians are having a degree of difficulty in providing a precise and consummate picture of the ABA. This is primarily due to it not being politically structured, with trade being carried out between Atlantic-based communities on an ad hoc basis.

This was entirely unlike Phoenicia and its colonies, which became prominent towards the later centuries of the ABA in places such as Gadir and which was much more highly organised. It is interesting to note that the creation of more permanent Phoenician colonies in Iberia happened soon after the collapse of the Atlantic Bronze trade, although the Urnfield iron culture was also beginning to make its presence felt.

This was a period which, following the development of Urnfield culture in Central Europe, saw the appearance there of the armoured warrior, and the emergence in central and Atlantic Europe alike of high-profiled fighting and feasting societies. Iberia is considered something of latecomer in the matter of Atlantic Europe, although at the same time Iberia became more open to outside influences.

Much of the trade consisted of metalware, involving resources such as torques, or tin and copper weaponry, with hoards of the latter being found in what historians describe as 'waterlogged locations' although one of the best hoards was found in Huelva in south-western Spain. This was also the period which saw a change in domestic arrangements, with people moving from the flat lowland agricultural areas to more secure settlements, usually fortified, and usually hill forts in Iberia which formed part of the Castro culture which succeeded the ABA here.

One final point to make here is that, in the view of the Galician historian, Florentino Lopez Cuevillas, the Iberian tribe which dealt primarily with other Atlantic traders was the Oestrimni, part of the Urnfield culture, but a part which had migrated into Iberia towards the end of the late Bronze Age and was therefore somewhat detached from the main Urnfield area of influence.

Towards its end, the ABA was succeeded by Iron Age Britain and Iron Age Ireland, an Iron Age France which was characterised by the Gauls, and Iron Age Iberia (which involved the aforementioned Castro culture in the north-west, and the Tartessian culture in the south-west which may in part have been informed by surviving impressions of the lost Argaric culture).

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