The
La Tène culture was a late
Iron Age culture, primarily associated with the
archaeological site uncovered in 1857 by
Hansli Kopp at
La Tène on the northern shores of
Lake Neuchatel in
Switzerland.
Although the notion of La Tène has ostensibly a
geographical basis, the term is used within archaeology mainly in a
periodic sense. The artefacts uncovered were
Celtic and indicate a significant progression from the earlier
Hallstatt Culture. There were three fairly well-defined La Tène periods: Early La Tène from c. 600 - 500 BC; Middle La Tène from 300 - 100 BC and Late La Tène which was from 100 BC until the time when the expansionist
Roman incursion into central
Europe was to curtail Celtic dominance.
La Tène carries also a strong denotation of the
cultural presence of the
Celts and strongly partitions them from many of the other mainland European pre-Roman tribes; the La Tène people were heavily involved in
art,
style,
power and
affluence as central conditions of their
lifestyles. Their influence became pervasive across Europe, reaching as far east as
Hungary and
Turkey, and as far west as
Britain and
Ireland.