Pre-Roman Iron Age - Overview

Overview

Archaeologists first made the decision to divide the Iron Age into distinct pre-Roman and Roman Iron Ages after Emil Vedel unearthed a number of Iron Age artifacts in 1866 on the island of Bornholm. They did not exhibit the same permeating Roman influence seen in most other artifacts from the early centuries AD, indicating that parts of northern Europe had not yet come into contact with the Romans at the beginning of the Iron Age.

The Iron Age in northern Europe is markedly distinct from the Celtic La Tène culture south of it, whose advanced iron-working technology exerted a considerable influence in the north, when, around 600 BC northern people began to extract bog iron from the ore in peat bogs, a technology acquired from their Central European neighbours. The oldest iron objects found have been needles, but edged tools, swords and sickles, are found as well. Bronze continued to be used during the whole period, but was mostly used for decoration.

Funerary practices continued the Bronze Age tradition of burning the corpses and placing the remains in urns, a characteristic of the Urnfield culture. During the previous centuries, influences from the Central European La Tène culture spread to Scandinavia from north-western Germany, and there are finds from this period from all the provinces of southern Scandinavia. Archaeologists have found swords, shield bosses, spearheads, scissors, sickles, pincers, knives, needles, buckles, kettles, etc. from this time. Bronze continued to be used for torcs and kettles, the style of which were continuous from the Bronze Age. Some of the most prominent finds are the Gundestrup silver cauldron and the Dejbjerg wagons from Jutland, two four-wheeled wagons of wood with bronze parts.