The Late European prehistory is a fascinating age. Indeed, the continent incurred in a series of incredible changes, both technological and social, with the introduction of new metallurgic...Show moreThe Late European prehistory is a fascinating age. Indeed, the continent incurred in a series of incredible changes, both technological and social, with the introduction of new metallurgic activities and productions and the rise of new dominant and macro-regional cultures. Within this frame, there are two, highly different situations in Central Europe: on the one hand, the last chapter of the European prehistory which corresponded to the Late Iron Age, was characterised by a cultural fragmentation between the European regions; whereas, on the other hand, few centuries earlier the Urnfield System unified the Central Europe under a common cultural phenomenon. Therefore, in a short period of time, Europe underwent an incredible regional differentiation, which constituted the latest image of Europe towards the beginning of the current era. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to understand what happened between these two chronological poles, i.e. what happened to Central Europe before the Late Iron Age: the objective is hence to explore the existence and the evolution of the roots of the cultural fragmentation in the previous periods, which are the Urnfield age and the Early Iron Age. The analytic means will be the bronze weapons, since they constituted one of the most important cultural indicators of regional identities during the Late Bronze Age. Indeed, the Urnfield System featured a martial society, therefore the weapons were important symbols and, thus, they might have followed important cultural developments. Because the technological aspect was quite homogeneous in the Urnfield period, the weapons are analysed through their typological aspect, i.e. their fashions and decorations. In this thesis, the cultural regionalisation will be analysed through three important territories, due to their cultural role in the Late Iron Age: they are the Villanovan area, the Hallstatt region, and the Lusatian territory. Each one of them is explored over the two periods taken in considerations, in order to outline its evolution over time and its relationship with the other two regions. The logical assumption that one might think about, is that, as the majority of the historical and cultural phenomena, the cultural fragmentation witnessed by the Late Iron Age, has to have been a gradual process that took several centuries to acquire the final shape that characterises Central Europe at the end of its prehistory. Therefore, one might think that the Urnfield System featured an elevated degree of inner homogeneity, whereas the following Early Iron Age was characterised by a higher cultural regionalisation, if not total fragmentation already. However, this thesis seems to point toward an interesting and unexpected discovery: the regional differentiation, between the Urnfield period and the Late Iron Age, was not a gradual process. Indeed, surprisingly and contrary to the belief of many authors, the Urnfield System has been revealed less homogeneous than one might have thought, whereas the following period, i.e. that Early Iron Age which is so close to the fragmented Europe of the Late Iron Age, is much more homogeneous, not only than the expectation, but also than the unitarian Urnfield System itself. This means that, after the collapse of the latter, the post-Urnfield cultures, following the typologies of their predecessors, continued to develop new weapons, which clearly resembled the Urnfield models: therefore, the Early Iron Age Central Europe was an evolution and thus a continuation of the Urnfield System. Such new cultures, despite the end of the previous unitarian cultural phenomenon, became even more homogeneous, leading to the conclusion that, the cultural fragmentation witnessed in the following period, must have abruptly taken place at the beginning of the Late Iron Age, and that it hadn't roots in the Urnfield period, nor especially in the Early Iron Age.Show less
