Investigating the Celtic World

The Celtic World: LaTène

Class 4 at the International School of Geneva (La Châtaigneraie) has been investigating the La Tène period of history through an inquiry into

people in the past and people in the present

The class began with their questions about the Celts:
History of the Celts	How did they become a culture? Where did they come from? Why did they live in groups? How did they dissapear?
Their travels and migrations	Why did they want to conquer other places? How did they travel? What did they take with them? How did they eat on their travels? Why were they always on the move? What means of transport did they have?
Their activities and occupations	What jobs and professions did they have ? What did they like to do?
Their food and eating habits	What animals did they hunt? How did they hunt? What domestic animals did they have? Did they depend more on herds of cattle or on farming? What did they eat?
Their houses	How did they live in their houses? How did they build their houses? What did they build their houses with?
Wars	What peoples did they fight with? What weapons did they have? How did they make their weapons? What were their weapons made of? How did they protect themselves from their enemies?
Other questions	Is it true that they were afraid that the sky would fall on their heads? How did they make their clothes? What language(s) did they speak?

	To begin to find answers to their questions, the Class visited the Laténium, which is the name of the Archaeology Museum of the Canton of Neuchâtel Click here to visit the Laténium's web site Follow these links to see the class at work in the museum
	The Laténium - an archaeological museum
	In the Laténium: Studying Celtic designs
	In the Laténium: Studying ceramic objects
	In the Laténium: The drama of La Tène
	In the Laténium: Studying fibules
	In the Laténium: Studying metal objects
	In the Laténium: Studying weapons
	In the Laténium: Studying the Mt. Vully oppidum model
	In the Laténium: Studying the statue
	In the Laténium:Studying objects associated with transportation



This is the map the class drew showing the 1 hour trip from the school to Lake Neuchatel. The school is on Lac Leéman at the lower left; the Lateénium is the dot in the upper right corner, on Lac Neuchaâtel. Click here to see a satelite photo of the same area.

Visit these web sites to learn more about La Tène

Link to Images from Iron Age Western Europe
for pictures of artifacts from other La Tène period sites
http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/uj/ujk.html

Link to the La Tène (Neuchatel) site
(in French) is the site of the school in Marin-Epagnier, one of the network of Les sites des EduNautes, hosted by edunet.ch. The page includes a map of the area, and photos of the artifacts found at the site, with a brief history of the archaeologicl investigations there.
http://www.edunet.ch/classes/marin/la_tene.htm
Use Babelfish.com to translate a web page from French to English. http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Link to the Laténium (the Archaeology Museum of Neuchatel)
http://www.latenium.ch/www.latenium_e.ch/welcome_e.html

For geographical information about Mt. Vully, the site of the oppidum, an arial photo, a map of the site, and a plan of the reconstructed part of the oppidum.
http://misha1.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/aurweb/BOC/VoirBOC?CRITL=Rempart&aur_offset_rec=2

More information at latene.com, the site of an Irish and Scottish based thematic map & poster producer and supplier. The "Background" page displays the same text, but a different graphic, as The Celtic Corner site, by Michael Wangbickler, which includes a resource page, at http://www.celticcorner.com/latene.html