The Gauls have never been so fashionable: exhibitions in shambles are linked from hairy Gaul to Narbonne, the most specialized works as the most accessible appear at a regular pace, while politics itself evokes leisure the
"refractory Gauls"
of present-day France. This activity is not a sham. For thirty years, the new contributions of archeology, history and anthropology have profoundly reshaped our knowledge of the peoples who inhabited, more than 2000 years ago, the territories which form the major part of France. current. From the Gallic economy to its forms of political organization, many of the misunderstandings that still subsisted in the middle of the last century are being cleared up - at least in part - in the light of these new perspectives. On the occasion of the European Archeology Days which take place from June 18 to 20, let us take a tour of this ancient Gaul in full renewal to see, in five themes, our historical knowledge in full mutation.
The Gauls, Celts under influences
The delimitation, sometimes confused, between Celts and Gauls, never fails to leave one perplexed.
As Dominique Garcia, president of the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) explains, the Gauls are nothing less than Hellenized Celts and then Romanized in contact with the Mediterranean world.
"On a Celtic substrate comes to impose Mediterranean influences, and therefore the birth of a new culture"
, indicates the seasoned archaeologist, who published in May a small colored sum on the inhabitants of Gaul (
Les Gaulois à the naked eye
, CNRS Éditions).
"In the anthropological advances of recent years, we have been able to detect that peoples do not form immutable entities, but have elements which are manufactured, which evolve,"
he continues. To this are added new historical perspectives, led for example at the Collège de France by Christian Goudineau (1939-2018), who showed how Caesar had circumscribed Gaul as a space of conquest arbitrarily limited by the Rhine. A border that was not one at the time.
“The Germans were a Celtic people like any other; from the moment they are put outside the space of the Gallic War, they will evolve differently ”
, summarizes Dominique Garcia.
Far from having been a wild and isolated space, Gaul fell into the area of Roman economic and cultural influence at the end of the Second Punic War (in 202 BC).
The Gallic War can therefore be seen as the defense of a market and the interest of Roman merchants.
Jeremy Perraudeau
A Roman Gaul before the conquest
We still imagine here and there that Gaul, fiercely savage and independent, would not have become Romanized until the conquests of Caesar, in the middle of the 1st century BC. It is to ignore the depth of the Roman hold-up on the economy which is essential in the aftermath of the Second Punic War. The quantity of amphorae unearthed by the various actors of archeology thus makes it possible to follow the evolution of the consumption of Italic wine, which goes from around 20% of the alcohol in circulation around 200 BC. AD nearly 80%, from 150 BC. J.-C .. A hold that was not limited to drinks alone, far from it.
"The latest discoveries at Bibracte, on Mont Beuvray, have shown that there were Roman-type domus, whereas we are really in the Gallic world"
,remarks Dominique Garcia.
"The ways of life, the economy, the culture, and even until the diffusion of the currency in the 2nd century before our era, all this shows that Gaul is then already in a sphere which is Roman"
.
The more extensive excavation of the Gallic territory, in particular thanks to the development of preventive archeology, today makes it possible to better understand the full extent of this economic power that is Gaul a century before Caesar.
And to better understand, in turn, its possible annexation.
Read also: In Auvergne, archaeologists make a major discovery about the Gauls
One people but countries
Organized into about sixty
independent
“cities”
the size of our current departments, Gaul has never formed a monolithic block, let alone centralized. Despite the primacy of certain groups - such as the Aedui and the Arverni - the demographic estimates made in recent years converge towards a fairly homogeneous distribution of the Gallic population, which would have numbered between 5 and 20 million people.
“There was no Gallic state nor a Gallic nation, it never existed. On the other hand, shared cultural and economic practices have led to an organization of cities among themselves ”
, explains the president of Inrap. This functioning as a network of independent cities facilitates their meeting within confederations; a mode of organization that can be found in the rest of the Mediterranean, in Etruria as in the Greek world. This mosaic of different cities, better and better known through archaeological excavations, therefore formed neither a united front nor, even less, an island of autarkic tribes, but a complex system, as Dominique Garcia evokes:
“There had a diversity of political organizations but also a desire for convergence, with the existence of places of exchange such as the Carnutes forest ”
.
1/2 - The majority of representations of Gallic deities that have come down to us date from the Gallo-Roman period.
Here, a statuette of a hero carrying a lyre, possibly a bard ancestor.
Dated from the 2nd century BC.
J.-C;
it was discovered in Paule (Côtes-d'Armor).
Inrap / Hervé Paitier
2/2 - The god Cernunnos, represented in the center, between Mercury and Apollo, in the 1st century AD, wears a distinctly Gallic torque around his neck.
Luisa Ricciarini / Leemage
Druids, priests or philosophers?
Popularized by the figure of Panoramix, under the pencils of Goscinny and Uderzo, the Druids were not priests in the strict sense of the term, as their modern neopaian reinterpretations may suggest.
“They transmit knowledge and form, with others, an organized clergy
,” recalls Dominique Garcia.
We sometimes also talk about philosophical knowledge, but it is difficult to learn more about it. ”
What we know better and better, however, are the sacred Gallic shrines and enclosures, established on symbolic natural sites such as springs or summits.
Long remained aniconical, that is to say that they did not represent their gods, the Gauls finally adopted, in contact with the Mediterranean world, a cult of anthropomorphic heroes, sculpted with a torque around their neck.
This prestigious adornment, much more widespread in Gallic society than was suspected a few decades ago, persists in later representations of divinities in the Gallo-Roman era.
Read also: Vercingetorix, this illustrious stranger
Vercingetorix, the fantasized enemy of Caesar
Vercingétorix, the Arverne chief who led the great Gallic revolt of 52 BC. AD, continues to be at the center of discussions between archaeologists and historians who devote special attention to it. Published twenty years ago,
Le Dossier Vercingétorix
by Christian Goudineau thus recalled the abysmal contrast that exists between the historical sources of the character and his recent historiography. How then to get as close as possible to the real Vercingetorix? Without going so far as to grant him a complete biography, as was the case of the historian Jean-Louis Brunaux in 2018, Dominique Garcia proposes in reverse, in his book
Les Gaulois à l'œil nu
, to see in Vercingétorix a chef of war mounted in hairpin by his Roman adversary.
“It existed, it's obvious, but I have the impression that it was essentially built by Caesar, who saw in him a fiery leader, but in his hand
, he confides with caution.
He makes him the number one public enemy because politically we know we are going to defeat him.
It is used to build the story, to give rhythm to its text, and to personify the fight waged ”.
Vercingetorix, a straw man?
Barring an unexpected archaeological find, the debate should continue.
Read also: With the progress of archeology, a new look at the Gauls
