Geographical range | much of Western and Central Europe |
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Period | Iron Age Europe |
Dates | circa 500 BCE. — circa 1 BCE |
Type site | La Tène, Neuchâtel |
Preceded by | Hallstatt culture "D" |
Followed by | Roman Empire |
Iron Age |
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↑ Bronze Age |
Ancient Near East (1200 BC – 500 BC) India (1200 BC – 200 BC) Europe (1200 BC – 1 BC)
China (600 BC – 200 BC) Korea (400 BC – 400 AD) Japan (100 BC – 300 AD) Philippines (1000 BC – 200 AD) Vietnam (1000 BC – 630 AD) Sub-Saharan Africa (1000 BC – 800 AD) |
Axial Age |
↓ Ancient history |
Historiography |
The La Tène culture (/ləˈtɛn/; French pronunciation: [la tɛn]) was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where thousands of objects had been deposited in the lake, as was discovered after the water level dropped in 1857. La Tène is the type site and the term archaeologists use for the later period of the culture and art of the ancient Celts, a term that is firmly entrenched in the popular understanding, but presents numerous problems for historians and archaeologists. The culture became very widespread, and presents a wide variety of local differences. It is often distinguished from earlier and neighbouring cultures mainly by the La Tène style of Celtic art, characterized by curving "swirly" decoration, especially of metalwork.
La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 500 BCE to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BCE) in Belgium, eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, Southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and parts of Hungary, Ukraine and Romania. The Celtiberians of western Iberia shared many aspects of the culture, though not generally the artistic style. To the north extended the contemporary Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe, including the Jastorf culture of Northern Germany.