Celtic Military Equipment from the Territory of Ukraine: Towards a New Warrior Identity in the Pre-Roman Eastern Europe
Gennadiy Kazakevich
Taras Shevchenko National University of Ukraine
Abstract
The lands of present day Ukraine are stretched across the distinct periphery of the ‘Celtic world’. From the midfirst millennium BC the cultural background of this part of Eastern Europe was defined mainly by the Scythian culture of North Pontic steppes as well as by Hellenistic influences from the Greek colonies of the Black sea littoral zone and the kingdom of Bospor in the Crimea. However, starting from the early third century BC, the influence of the Central European La Tène culture extended to a much degree. This process was traditionally viewed as a result of either Celtic invasion (Machinskij 1974) or indirect trade contacts with the La Tène zone of Central Europe (Maksymov 1999).
Currently both ‘migration-focused’ and ‘autochthon-based’ approaches seem to be out of date. In recent studies, the Latènisation of Southern and Eastern Europe is interpreted as a culture-restructuring process affecting indigenous communities similar in many aspects to the Hellenisation of the Mediterranean region (see Džino 2007). The adaptation of La Tène cultural aesthetics and technical achievements, as well as Celtic linguistic elements caused the emergence of new ways of expressing identity. However, in some cases the traditional colonization paradigm still cannot be totally rejected. The aim of this paper is to show the finds of Celtic and related military equipment from the territory of Ukraine in the broad context of ‘Latènisation’ of Eastern Europe in the third–first centuries BC period.