The Coming of the Celts - European and Bronze Age Society By Mike Bond

In 1200 B.C.E., certain events radically changed the static environment that had existed in both Europe and the Mediterranean. European and Bronze Age society had been gradually improving its bronze and gold working, and warfare became more deadly with the manufacture of the much heavier bronze sword.

At this time, though, nomads from Russia took to the Mediterranean as sea-borne war bands. Following closely on the heels of their exodus from Russia, the great Hittite Empire in Anatolia crashed. Then Mycenae descended into the Greek Dark Ages, while Philistines overran Palestine. The collapse of the Hittites was particularly far reaching, because it was they who held the secrets to iron working.

The direct ancestors of the Celts were people known as the Urnfielders. They probably spoke an early form of Celtic. They were successful farmers, probably because of their crop rotation, and they were the first to build real hill forts in Europe. We see the beginnings of the Celts in what's known as Hallstatt, named after a village in the Salzkammergut in Austria, a place of substantial salt mines. Salt and iron were their currency, although salt was being utilized in this way even before 1000 B.C.E.

A very rich source of information about the Celts comes in what the archaeologists call the La Tene, named after a lake in Neuchatel, Switzerland. The name means "the Shallows", and from 1906 to 1917, many iron swords and other weapons, together with everyday iron work, woodwork, even a complete wheel and, more darkly, human skeletons were found. It was discovered that instead of the ordinary burial with the wagon, two wheel chariots accompanied the deceased, together with his weapons and armour.

The first Celts arrived in Britain around the 7th. century B.C.E., but the only signs of them of any size are around the coastal regions of England and Wales. Most people continued living their lives as they had done for centuries. The British smiths, however, did make changes, grasping eagerly for the new designs in swords.

The changes in society were not just one way, however, especially regarding pottery. From the 5th. century onwards, Halstatt and La Tene imports poured into Britain in ever increasing quantities. By the first century B.C.E., La Tene and Celtic culture was well established. It was at this point that further Celtic incursions took place, in particular the Belgae. These people were known to Caesar, since they inhabited an area just to the south of modern Belgium.

Coins first appeared, and the names of various tribes became known. This phase, around 150 B.C.E., is considered by archaeologists to be the most glorious in Celtic culture. It's the Irish who give us the fullest description of the Celts.

What was called the "Derbfine" was a family unit a lot larger than what we know as the nuclear family. This involved four generations from a common great grandfather. There was no individual land holding. All land was held collectively. There was an even larger unit, ruled over by a chief, where warriors gauged their wealth in cattle. This was know as the "Tuath", or tribe.

Beneath the warriors and nobles came the freemen, basically farmers, and paid food-rent to the king. They received cattle from the nobles for obligations. Below them came the slaves. In our next article we'll build on Celtic civilization and introduce Caesar, or at least hs writings, more fully

Again, I'm indebted to professor Lloyd Laing.

Here they come, swaggering and boastful, onto the historical stage. Half the time they were drunk, but for all their faults, the Celts brought art and metal working especially to new heights of brilliance. Diodorus Siculus, quoting fom the Greek geographer Poseidonius, tells us that the Celtic warriors on the Continent in the second century B.C.E. were "...terrifying in appearance. Deep sounding and very harsh voices. Tunics dyed and stained in various colours and trousers which they call 'bracae.' They wear striped cloaks, picked out with a small check pattern. Man size shields and bronze helmets." Certainly not people with whom to pick a fight!

Learn more about them on my site, where you'll be directed to all manner of Celtic artifacts; weapons, armour, jewelry. A wonderful place for buying gifts, especially http://www.theknightssite.com

mkbnd8@gmail.com

Language, Power and Belonging By Chris Mowles

I was recently sent a terms of reference for a consultancy with a medium-sized not for profit which contained terms and expressions which would probably be completely opaque to an outsider. The consultancy was expected to determine how far a particular function in the organisation was helping to 'fulfil the vision'. It asked whether current standards of work 'match the aspiration and vision' of the organisation? Are aspects of the work carried out 'strategically' so that staff are working in 'alignment' with the organisational mission and objectives? The language was used unselfconsciously and unproblematically, as though everyone would understand what was meant. Moreover, I wondered how we would know when staff in an organisation were in alignment, or that standards were matching aspirations? What would we look for to be sure?

I have commented in previous posts on the systemic assumptions that are implicit in such language, but what struck me additionally this time was how excluding it was. In order to engage with the terms of reference, and therefore apply for the consultancy, you have to be a member of this particular club and be fluent in the language. This is equally true if you want to engage critically with it, and the assumptions behind the terms used. It would take a good deal of confidence and courage to begin to question what is being said as a way of enquiring into what it is that the contractor really needs to know. There is an obvious power relationship between those who have work to offer and those who would seek it, but this is amplified by the nature of the terminology being used. The language of the terms of reference begins to frame the kind of discussion that is possible.

The sociologist Norbert Elias wrote extensively about the different ways in which language is used to create power relations, the difference between what he termed 'the established and outsiders'. For example, in describing the exclusionary dynamic between three communities who shared the same English village, the fictionally named Winston Parva, Elias demonstrated how language, and particularly gossip, is a medium through which groups or communities create strong and charismatic 'we' identities and stigmatise others.There is often a double blow for outsiders who will sometimes accept the language that is deployed against them and use it of themselves.

Additionally, in writing about the development of medieval court society Elias described how longer and longer chains of interdependencies between people in newly evolving states required groups of people to express power relations in more and more subtle ways. Where previously power struggles were settled violently, the evolution of new and ascendant groups of people, such as the emergent bourgeoisie, brought about a more complicated game of more evenly matched players. In court society groups of people vied for power by developing elaborate codes of courtly conduct, ways of speaking and behaving, to distinguish themselves from others. Elias develops his argument based on a close reading of the ways in which books of etiquette evolved over time, charting thow the game constantly changes to secure the dominance of one group over another.

Elias is not arguing that this is a wholly deliberate and conscious process, but arises from the interweaving of intentions of many different players: there is no one co-ordinator of, say, the interests of the bourgeoisie planning how s/he can advance the interests of their particular class. Interdependent people are obliged to co-operate and compete in order to get along. We have no option but to play the game.

This might be one way of understanding the effects of the changing game of international development which has become hugely more professionalised over the past 10-15 years. As more and more staff in European and American INGOs play the development game, it leads to greater differentiation and greater interdependency. Ways of acting and speaking, which no one player has designed or organised and which no single actor or group of actors is capable of changing, become prevalent and are a prerequisite for playing the game. These ways of acting and speaking about the work in turn become a requirement for organisations in the geographical South if they are to join in the game. But just as they learn the rules, so the game moves on. There is a constantly fluctuating process of exclusion and inclusion as power tilts back and forth between the engaged participants.

It is not inevitable that power relations stay the same, and Elias drew attention to the speed at which models of behaviour proliferate and change, as they are taken up by different groups. In international development strong organisations from, say, Bangladesh, have themselves become so powerful that they themselves are beginning to influence strongly the way the game is played. In doing so they will create their own conditions for belonging and new inequalities and imbalances of power.

I am not in any way implying that the terms of reference for the consultancy that I mentioned at the beginning of this post was deliberately written in an exclusionary way, or that the managers concerned are fully conscious of the game that they are obliged to play in order to do their jobs. We none of us are. What I am pointing to, however, is the ongoing process involving language, power and belonging to which we all contribute, and in noticing, we may have a greater ability to affect.

Chris Mowles
http://www.reflexivepractice.wordpress.com