Elite and prestige goods during the Early and Middle Bronze Age in France

The Armorican barrow at Melrand, in the Morbihan, Brittany, today still has the impressive volume of almost 5ooo m³, somewhat larger than the otherwise more famous barrow at Leubingen, estimated to be 4178 m³. It contained burial deposits comparable in richness to those of its German counterpart, with ten daggers, two axes, two bronze arrow- heads and a silver vase. However, it is not the largest Bronze Age 2 barrow in Armorica – the largest being Plouvorn K at 6ooo m³ and Plonéour-Lanvern at 86oo m³ – and its contents are not the richest either¹. The prestigious character of such sepulchres leaves no doubt; this localized observation is supported by studies of sepulchral ensembles on a regional or even narrower scale. These studies show that Bronze Age burial deposits were reserved for a tiny minority of the population, in variable proportions, depending on region and period, even in Armorica where opulent and monumental graves are exceptionally numerous: at about twenty². They point to certain types of objects being limited to an even smaller percentage of the richest ensembles. Consequently, these objects were considered as a display of the prestige enjoyed by the deceased during their lifetime. In general, these are certain types of weapons and fineries, and in lesser quantity, earthen- ware and equestrian equipment. We find few of these prestige goods in the remains of buildings. The large majority of them are found in deposits, either burial or otherwise.

These deposits are found, however, only in certain regions and in certain periods, and with no apparent regularity. Why? Were there empty or less-productive zones, low in raw materials? Were these inhabited by societies that were more egalitarian or later became so? To these questions, one has often answered “yes”, until one looks much more deeply at the social significance of these deposits, whether burial or not. We have gradually come to understand that different societies, with the same technical, economic and political development, “chose” to bury some people with prestige goods and others not. Moreover, while some societies deposited prestige goods directly into graves, others put them into kinds of hiding-places, or threw them into rivers, lakes or ponds. Cultural choices were probably added to economic constraints, giving rise to the variety of situations we have seen. How and why? These are the two questions we will try to answer here.

Methodological and theoretical framework

We know about extinct societies from what they produced. Among the most spectacular things are rare goods and monumental edifices. As a compliment to more discreet yet indispensable data, in order to approach the majority of the population these can provide crucial information for understanding the organization of society as a whole.

Through their rarity or technical quality, some goods seem, in effect, to be invested with a particular value. They are buried with individuals who were probably seen as holders of prestigious attributes by other members of their society, as suggested by numerous ethnographical examples: attributes such as « knowledge, competence, bravura, prodigality or supernatural powers. These attributes are associated according to infinitely contrasting modalities, to social, economic and political status, to the inherited or earned position occupied by each person. Here, prestige is enough to found a hierarchy; elsewhere, it reinforces those that already existed »³.

So-called prestige goods probably made their first appearance in primitive human societies, but they clearly become more abundant and spectacular in Europe towards the middle of the fifth millennium BC. During this period, along the Black Sea coast⁴ and the Atlantic coast⁵, human communities started depositing exceptionally rich and rare goods for a very small number of deceased individuals. Almost immediately, these prestige goods were deposited in different ways according to period and region, either in graves or not. These deposits also varied in their composition, both quantitatively and qualitatively: they could be single (just one object) or multiple (from two to several hundred). Multiple deposits were either unicategorical (one single category, like axes alone, for example) or multicategorical (axes and jewellery, for example). This variety of composition is found as much in burial deposits as in non- burial deposits. Even unicategorical series can be seen in graves. However, they never surpass ten objects, remain quite rare and discontinue after the Bronze A.

From the Neolithic on, these series are composed of so-called prestige goods (ceremonial axes with semi-precious stones or flint daggers, for example) as well as goods less invested with prestigious symbolism (long flint blades, for example). So the question surrounding the precise definition of prestige goods is thus: must these goods be dis- covered in context, that is to say associated with a privileged individual, or does it suffice for such a context to be established in the same zone and during the same period so that all the objects in question, even if found apart, are covered by this definition? The first option would undoubtedly be the most satisfying; a prestige good could probably lose its social value in diverse ways before being abandoned. The uncertainties of archaeology lead us, though, to retain, under this term, all objects that would have been, in principle, considered as such. The aim is, in effect, to use goods thus supposed to position the social elites in both space and time. The great majority of these objects having only been discovered because they were withdrawn from the recycling process in order to be deposited, it seems reasonable to suppose that these deposits, whether they be burial or not, were made on the initiative and under the control of their owners. Thus, even if a certain number of non-burial deposits were stocks of metal later recuperated for re-smelting, partly re-enclosing declassified, devalued, worthless prestige goods (for example, after damage has made them unusable in their initial function), it is possible to think that these objects signal the presence of social elites in a sufficiently precise place and it is time to shine some light on the question.

The most highly-furnished graves can also contain objects for which common sense finds it hard to envisage a prestige function, like tools with no finishing or like flint blades, revealing veritable technical prowess, but paradoxically devoid of any practical use, unless they are fragmented. These problematic goods, more often than not discovered in series, in types of hiding-places, should, according to the above- mentioned criteria, be included in prestige goods. Their raw look and frequent multiplicity suggest rather that these were more easily exchangeable instruments than prestige goods per se: as a type of currency-bar. Objects of this type could, in effect, have played the role of quasi-monetary tools, as understood by M. Mauss⁶, possibly also being – which is not always the case for “quasi-monies” – reserves of wealth, standards of measurement and a means of exchange, their value being guaranteed by convention in a particular region when they were whole. More prosaically, such objects could also be a mass of raw materials, easily transportable and recyclable in another region once re- smelted or broken down. This hypothesis leads one to interpret these objects as symbols of wealth, when they feature in the graves of the powerful, and as pure and simple wealth as an offering to supernatural forces, when they are amassed in votive or propitiatory deposits and “signed” by the addition of several personal objects of the principal donator, particularly weapons and finery, i. e. prestige goods in the strict sense of the term.

Finally, we must look at two types of objects which are open to debate. The case of metallurgist’s tools deposited among burial furnishings in two very rich graves of the Únětice culture is a good example of the complexity involved in defining prestige goods. These tools suggest that political leaders may have had a privileged link with the workings of metallurgy in the Early Bronze Age. Thus, it is not impossible that a monopoly of expertise was practised by the social elite under the guise of magical-religious powers. This supposition remains nonetheless fragile due to the low number of available examples. Moreover, the tools in question could well have symbolized not the directly productive activity of the deceased but the control he exerted over artisans, or even over the entire circulation of metals. The case of metallic vessels is easier to resolve. These gold, silver, or more simply, bronze objects are manifestly more preferential in the richest and/or the most monumental graves. It is logical to consider them as prestige goods used by the social elite during ceremonial or ostentatious banquets.

The study of prestige goods is particularly important for the early European Bronze Age, since this period is considered by many as one of reinforcement of the social hierarchy. This establishing of hierarchy is explained by various factors or combinations of factors, one of the most important of which is the necessity, especially for an economy founded on bronze metallurgy, to maintain alliances and extended exchanges. It was, in effect, vital to have a more guaranteed access to the two elements contained in bronze, copper and tin, deposits of which were located unevenly around the land and very rarely in proximity to each another. The Bronze Age only distinguishes itself from the previous age by this metal produced by voluntary alloying, the minority element of which must be at approximately 10 % of the total to give a product of correct quality. One can thus suppose that the management of these relational requirements was used by community leaders to increase their power. We note, in effect, that in many traditional societies, those who ran such networks were the social elite. These leaders were naturally best placed to establish links with foreign counterparts through receptions or accompanied diplomatic or matrimonial excursions, for which prestige goods would undoubtedly have played a primary role.

To better grasp the social significance of the depositing of prestige goods, which for us in the modern day seems to be an incomprehensible waste of resources, we have decided to work on an unprecedented scale: that of the whole of France. Due to limited preparation time, we have restricted ourselves here to the study of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (Bronze A, B and C). For the examined period, the prestige goods responding to the established criteria are:

• those composed of rare materials, since access to them was difficult (gold, silver, amber); these are primarily fineries;
• those which required expertise and a considerable investment of time, both to master and to manufacture:
• -weapons (halberds, daggers, swords), often decorated and requiring the use of complex riveting techniques to ensure efficient fixing to the handle;
• kitchenware, which demanded both sheet-metal and riveting techniques or
• fineries, which needed expert mastery of firing techniques: porcelain or glass.

Among the contextual data useful for our purpose, we give particular attention to the type of archaeological structure (burial deposits, non-burial deposits, detritic remains), to associated goods and to geographic location. It is in treating such data, especially when in large amount, that the SIG makes a very valuable contribution. It allows us, in particular, to evaluate the respective importance of natural restrictions (locality of raw material deposits and the hierarchical organization of communication networks) and the spatio-cultural data (grouping of sites and the limits of cultural entities, which express localization and the extent of supra- local exchange networks).

Socio-economic context

During the Bronze Age, many prestige goods were manufactured with metals. It is important to note the potentially rich metallic deposits in France (fig. 1). To simplify: five metalliferous massifs form a diagonal line of copper, tin and gold deposits from north-west to south-east (from the Armorican Massif to south-west of the Massif Central), a north-south line dotted with copper deposits, especially along the eastern border (from the south of the schistose Rhenish Massif to the southern Alps) and a south-west line where there are also copper and gold deposits (the Pyrenees). Silver is also present in Armorica, Languedoc and southern Alsace. Of course, these deposits were only potentially exploitable during the periods dealt with here. Since our knowledge of the earliest effectively exploited deposits is minimal, and even in places where traces exist these have often been effaced by later exploitations, it is only possible to base our thinking on potential deposits, with all the usual reservations. These massifs border two sedimentary basins and the Mediterranean coastline. Metal deposits aside, these zones are also rich from an agricultural point of view, well drained by watercourses that also facilitate long-distance transport and, consequently, potentially more populated and more receptive to new phenomena. They are connected by sills (those of Burgundy and le Poitou) and by the Rhône corridor.

Despite this exceptional potential on a continental scale, the metallurgy of copper was not developed in western Europe until nearly one thousand years later than in south-west Europe. In what is now present-day France, it was first practised in the Languedoc at the end of the fourth millennium BC. By 2600-2500 BC, only the north-west half of the country remained outside of the production zone of copper objects. It was with the extraordinary expansion of the exchange networks, associated with bell-shaped beakers, that copper metallurgy became general practice, notably with daggers and flat axes. The latter were probably used, in part, as ingots. They are not, in general, associated with other types of objects, and are thus difficult to date precisely. It was prob- ably not down to chance, however, that the regions with the largest wealth of flat axes to the north of the “copper frontier⁷” in the middle of the third millennium BC show strict correlation with the main expansion zones of bell-shaped beakers with maritime or “international” decorations: the Limousin and the Atlantic coastline, from the Charente up to the Armorican coast.

The beginning of the Bronze Age, in the sense of traditional western European typochronologies, in other words Bronze A1 in the German system, corresponds to the terminal stage of the earthenware bell-shaped beaker phenomenon. This involved, according to yet to be clarified mechanisms, an extension and an intensification of exchanges of rare goods in networks run by social elites, marking their distinction by the use of “international” standards. These characteristics are often found in burial practices: individual graves in barrows, goblets designed to the stylistic canons present throughout the west of the continent, copper daggers and fineries in gold or in amber. They prefigure those of the ancient Bronze Age.

Spatial and contextual distribution

Copper flat axes were, most likely, still made in Bronze A1 during the two last centuries of the third millennium BC, but for the metal productions of this first stage of the Bronze Age, in the traditional sense of the term, data remains too imprecise to prove the analysis. We should therefore note that the objects attributable to Bronze A1 are in the main part in cop- per, at best oxides, and not true tin-alloyed bronze.

The latter only became widespread during Bronze A2, although not yet exclusively. For this stage, it is still difficult to distinguish two subdivisions, even in Armorica, where two series of barrows (a first series with graves in flint arrow heads, and a second, more sober series with graves in pottery) undoubtedly partially cross over. The distribution of prestige goods in France during these four centuries shows the existence of two dense groups (fig. 2):

• the Armorican region where we observe that all functional categories of prestige goods in this period are present (we note, however, a rarity of vitrified objects);
• most were found in individual and monumental graves;
• people never settled more than three days round-trip on foot, often a one-day round trip, from a deposit of copper tin, gold or silver.
• the Languedoc region where we note that prestige goods in bronze, i.e. weapons, are rare, where- as glass, porcelain or frit beads are more frequent;
• these elements of finery were found in graves, sometimes collective or multiple, under dolmens or in caves;
• people settled close to deposits of copper and gold, but not of tin.

The proximity of raw material deposits is also seen in several cases in the Alps, but it is only a question of a more relative proximity, probably because of limitations due to the higher altitudes than in the ancient massifs. For the rest, the goods in question are dotted along the main valleys:

• • the Seine, with two groupings – one on the lower valley, the other just downstream from Paris – and the Rhône, downstream from its confluence with the Durance;
  • to a lesser extent the Loire, the Rhine, the Saône, with groupings around the confluences with the Doubs, the Charente, the Dordogne and the Ain.

In these river areas, the majority of prestige goods found are in the shape of isolated objects. These are probably deliberate deposits of a single object and not misplaced objects. This all points to a correlation between proximity – perhaps even control – of the raw material deposits and ceremonial burial practices, except at high altitude. It suggests, moreover, that control of the main traffic axes was tied to practices involving the non-burial deposition of socially-valued goods. It should therefore be noted that all potential raw material deposits did not give rise to this phenomenon, particularly in Lorraine, but also to the west of the Massif Central and in the Pyrenees, maybe because these deposits were not exploited at the time, or because of social choices.

The same can be said of the main traffic axes. The Garonne, like the whole of the south-west, has given up very few prestige goods. This is also the case in the upper basins of the Loire and the Seine – Oise, Aisne, Marne, Aube, Seine, Yonne – whereas Armorican products have been found in the Haut-Rhin and in Switzerland, having thus journeyed through these valleys. For Champagne-Ardenne, Lorraine and Burgundy, we observe that the cultural limit, which also runs along a watershed line – the Atlantic basin on one side, the Mediterranean and the North Sea on the other – corresponds to an absence of prestige goods. Some absences, though, are harder to explain, particularly in south-west France, where copper metallurgy was already well developed during the transition from the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) to the Early Bronze Age. Consequently, we can sup- pose the existence of more social or even ideological factors, which harks back to the polysemy of burial practices and the practice of depositing in general⁸.

In Bronze B, we note the continuation of the grouping of prestige goods in Armorica (fig. 3): from this time on, weapons exclusively. A clear change occurs, however. While these goods were, until then, mostly deposited in graves in barrows, from that time on, they also appear in non-burial deposits: the so-called Tréboul group of J. Briard⁹. Grouping in Languedoc, though, seems to have disappeared in Bronze B. Chronological precision, however, leaves quite a lot to be desired for. Also, we should not exclude the possibility of certain ensembles classified as Bronze A2 belonging in reality to Bronze B1. Whatever the case, the trend here also seems to be leaning towards a decline in ostentatious ceremonial burial practices. More modest groupings continue in the lower Seine, the mid Seine (though here, with a movement to the east, in other words upstream from Paris), in the Orléanais, around the confluence of the Saône and the Doubs and in Quercy. Others appear in the lower Yonne, in the mid-basin of the Oise, in the Creuse and, moreover, in the French Bas-Rhin (particularly with the barrow graves of the forest of Haguenau).

In Bronze C, Armorica remains the main seat of a grouping, but this diminished, however, in terms of the quantity of prestige goods (fig. 4). Languedoc confirms the pre-perceived decline. Several groupings, on the contrary, are reinforced: in the lower Seine, in the mid Seine, in the lower Yonne, in the mid Oise basin, in the Bas-Rhin, around the confluence of the Saône and the Doubs (which stretched from that time on almost continually to Lyons). New groupings also appear: in the Jura (burial and non-burial deposits), in Lorraine (a small group of barrow graves), along the Somme confluence (a concentration, perhaps in two parts), in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (especially gold finery; above all those of the “ornament horizon”, deposited in watery environments), in the Saumurois and upstream from the Bordeaux estuary. To these are added two exceptional sites (fig. 5): Fort Harrouard¹⁰ and Agris¹¹. The evolutionary dynamic shows a decline or stagnation in the regions which were initially the most ostentatious, characterized both by their relative proximity to potential copper deposits and by their perpetuation of cultural traditions developed during the recent or late Neolithic (3400-2200 BC approx.). Progressing regions, often very strong, are situated more in the north of the country.

To the west, they are mostly in the low and medium altitude valleys of the major rivers. Prestige goods are found, in very large majority, in the shape of non-burial deposits, more particularly in watery environments, marshes and especially rivers. In this dynamic, the Paris Basin takes on a primary role. To the east, they are in topographical corridors formed by the courses of large rivers, especially the Rhine and the Saône. The deposits in question are both burial and non-burial contexts, set further back from the water than in the first case, at the bottom of rivers in the second.

Conclusion

What happened seems to point to profound changes, over the seven centuries concerned here, to the hierarchy of exchange networks, linked to a gradual change in their size. Alpine coppers are probably the object of growing exchanges with the Atlantic peoples, but more probably, western tin productions were exported towards the peoples of the northern Alps, most likely in the form of bronze ingots and more particularly axes. A relative decline in southern France seems to echo that in the Iberian Peninsula. In a system with complex cultural differences, the chiefs of Armorica no longer had such comfortable contacts with external partners; whereas before it was a question of other communities in the Atlantic zone, these were then communities within the continent much further away. In these relations, certain corridors were more active than others, particularly those which put different networks in contact with each other, and more precisely during the crossing of cultural and identity barriers and in areas where the goods in transit were concentrated. With the exchange networks growing longer and more complex, any initial advantage diminished. The most favourable positioning, in order to have more regular arrivals and to control the biggest possible amount of metal, tended to be situated where the sources of different supplies converged. There, the effects of more active transfers of goods, people and ideas than elsewhere enriched but was also prone to destabilize local communities. They were thus susceptible to creating more important and more sustainable social pressure than elsewhere. Consequently, this was likely to provoke social upheavals, justifying ostentatious ceremonial burial practices on the part of the ruling elite or founding dynasties, and social shake-ups causing an intensification of religious practices, once again fully exploited by the elite for their own benefit.

Departing from analogous observations, R. Bradley¹² and K. Kristiansen¹³ suggested an interpretation of these two major depositing practices as two opposing policies. Bradley opposes these deposits, burial or non-burial contexts, as a function of their ceremonial nature or not: ceremonial deposits would constitute a necessary display of power in a period of crisis of legitimacy; a light symbolizing of the social divides would characterize the calm periods. Kristiansen goes further. He integrates all deposits into an overall social policy of the manipulation of wealth. He opposes ceremonial burial deposits to non-burial deposits: ceremonial burial deposits would correspond to the installation of new social elites (new dominant lineages, new dynasties); non-burial deposits would simply serve to keep the elite in place and, more widely, to maintain all social relations outside periods of serious conflict. One of us has since pleaded¹⁴ for a more polysemic understanding of these deposits. If we admit, like Bradley and Kristiansen, that these deposits, in their temporal and spatial variability, point to social changes, then, more precisely, these changes may have diverse causes: natural or human, internal or external. Numerous ethnographical and historical comparisons show, in effect, that these changes may have led to investments, themselves variable, in ritual practices. The practices of coded depositing that we see in non-burial deposits may therefore correspond to different practices of offering, which varied according to period, place, donating social group or the problem that needed solving and the circumstances thus created. The present article, based on deposits that include prestige goods, is heading in this direction, since these deposits are manifestly correlated in time and in space with those containing any type of metal object. A close study of the composition of the deposits should enable us to progress further along this path.