Abstract
MB. J. M. DE NAVABBO, in his John Rhos Memorial Lecture for 1936, delivered before the British Academy on December 17, surveyed the history of research in an early phase of Celtic culture, dealing with the La Tene period of the European Iron Age, in which the Celtic peoples emerged from the half light preceding the dawn of written history. He pointed out that the geographical extension of the La Tene civilization and its association with Celtic peoples was first determined by Sir Augustus Franks. Subsequent research has tended to confirm his views. No serious contribution to the study of this civilization was made before the fifties and sixties of the last century, when Thurnham, Franks and the German archaeologist Lindenschmidt made research possible by assembling various La Tene types into a definite group. The problem was at first approached in the light of literary evidence. Therefore, Mr. de Navarre went on to show, special importance is attached to the typological work in 1885 of Tischler, which resulted in his division of the La Tene period into three phases, and the work five years later of Sir Arthur Evans on the Aylesford urnfield, a contribution of which the significance is felt more to-day than it was then. After reference to Reinecke, D6chelette and others, special mention was made in dealing with post-War activities in this field to the work of Jacobsthal, who like Reinecke was a trained classical archaeologist. He viewed the La Tene style on its own merits, and not as a mere barbaric reflection of classical art. Finally, in discussing the locality in which the La Tene civilization originated, M. de Navarro expressed himself as in agreement with Dechelette and Dr. R. M. Wheeler in placing it in the region of the rich Early La Tene chieftains' graves of the middle Rhenish area.
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Celtic Studies. Nature 138, 1089 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1381089c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1381089c0