Black-gloss (»Campanian«) pottery in the Late La Tène Central Europe – preliminary archaeological and archaeometric studies

Abstract

Black-gloss (»Campanian«) pottery in the Late La Tène Central Europe – preliminary archaeological and archaeometric studies

This article presents the finds of a particular class of Mediterranean fine ware (black-gloss pottery) in the Late Iron Age of transalpine, principally Central Europe. The finds from Bavaria, Bohemia and the Middle Danube area are studied from a ceramological point of view and mainly through the analysis of the chemical composition of samples. These investigations show two distribution circuits of the ware in Central Europe: a western, Calenian, reaching Bavaria via Gaul, as well as a south-eastern, Arretine, crossing the Eastern Alps and supplying the Middle Danube regions area. Moreover, several individuals had to be eliminated from our corpus as either false attributions or »duplications« of sherds of a single vessel.