Following in the Celtic Trader’s Footsteps: Early La Tène Iron Brooches in the Republic of Moldova

Abstract

The present study brings to the foreground of discussions a certain type of artefacts, the importance of which in the process of analysing archaeological finds is difficult to overestimate, but which, unfortunately, was not used by the researchers to the proper extent. Thus, in the specialised literature there is no single work on the Iron Age brooches that were discovered on the present-day territory of the Republic of Moldova. Moreover, even when some specimens were introduced into scientific circulation, their publication was very sketchy, often without a clear and precise presentation of the context, and the illustrations accompanying incomplete texts in most cases are not clear enough for detailed analysis. Based on this situation, we decided to fill this historiographic gap and at the first stage we devoted our research to the iron brooches of the early La Tène scheme found on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. As a result of the investigation, a lot was allocated, consisting of 12 specimens, most of which were found on the territory of the Getic hillforts on the right bank of the Dniester. The degree of preservation of the items leaves much to be desired. The number of undamaged brooches is relatively small, and those preserved fragmentarily create sufficient impediments for the possibilities of classification. Despite these circumstances, a catalogue of early La Tène scheme brooches was developed, on the basis of which the main analogies were identified both in the neighbouring areas (Romania and Ukraine), and in Central Europe. We focused on tracing the chronological landmarks for the existing analogies, as well as evaluating the chronological framework of the presented artefacts. At the same time, we set out to follow the ways and means by which these brooches reached the Prut-Dniester area and, where possible, to highlight probable phenomena and processes that were behind the respective distribution of this type of artefacts.