Celtic culture shaped the life of people in Central Europe for centuries – until the Romans conquered the region. But even then, Celtic traditions lived in the middle of a romanized society, as a site in Saarland demonstrated. According to this, people built Roman villas at the time and buried their dead in Roman cemeteries, but still survived core elements of Celtic culture such as burial mounds or Celtic clothing.
In the Saarland Oberlösters, a district of the city of Wadern between Saarbrücken and Trier, several Celtic burial mounds from the 4th and 5th centuries BC were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century – nothing unusual per se. However, this is different with two other burial mounds found in the 1960s in this area. The two monumental earth hills with a striking stone pine cone on top are also typical Celtic tombs at first glance. However, excavations in the 1990s unveiled that these two burial mounds stood in the middle of a typical Roman cemetery and had only been built in the second century.
From the Keltensiedlung to Römervilla
The burial mounds of Upper Lösters come from a change in upheaval from the Celtic to the Roman era. “This is about a time in which the sovereign Celtic tribes were integrated into the Roman Empire and in this way a political unity was created – and therefore no less than the historical roots of what we call Europe today,” explains Sabine Hornung from the Saarland University. Together with her team, she has been researching the ancient relics of this area since 2006 – and has found it plentiful. The team there discovered a Celtic settlement from the pre -Roman period. “In the first century BC, people lived near the Rotbach in wooden post buildings,” reports the archaeologist. Dark discoloration in the ground, where the wooden piles once stuck in the ground. The Celtic hamlet comprised five to six houses including farm buildings.
The excavations also show a significant change at the end of the first century. With the arrival of the Romans and their influence, customs and architecture, but also the structure of society, changed: “A property -owning upper class now began to emphasize its upper status architecturally,” reports Hornung. This is evidenced by the remains of a Roman villa who dug up and reconstruct the archaeologists. It is about
the largest Roman estate in the Hochwald to date. “The host lived in the magnificent main building, subordinate families in the smaller outbuildings of the adjacent farm,” says Hornung. “Social differences to families in surrounding outbuildings are now evident here.”
Hill graves as a cultural hybrid
The Roman burial field in Upper Lösters with its two hill tombs was probably used by the residents of the Roman villa, but also the people of a settlement from that time that is around half a kilometer away. “It is a rural settlement landscape together with the burial ground, a temple district on a hill that was a cultural-religious center of the community, a homestead of the large landowner and other farms of dependent small farmers,” explains Hornung. “The ensemble of grave finds and various archaeological monuments is unique in the entire western Hunsrück.”
The combination of Celtic and Roman elements in the burial ground testifies to the attitudes of the people during this transition period: they already lived according to Roman customs, but at the same time emphasized their Celtic origin. “The monumental graves of hinges are a cultural hybrid. As the earthen mound, they visibly show a typical Celtic grave architecture. However, they are over -the -roman customs with massive cuboid walls. The stone pine pins with which they are crowned are also typical Roman symbols of eternal life,” explains Hornung. “With these hills, their builders emphasize their Celtic roots, but also use representative Roman architectural elements.” This mixture of Roman and Celtic elements also illustrates a Roman grave monument from the second century discovered between the two hills. On this actually typical Roman monument, the deceased and his wife are shown in Celtic costume in a field of image.
According to the archaeologist, these finds illustrate how people dealt with the cultural and political change at the time, which made them identify and which beliefs and values shaped their lives in this transition period.
Source: University of the Saarland
