Between East and West: Armorica and the European Bronze and Iron Ages

Abstract

As one of the peripheral regions of Europe, the Armorican peninsula is often believed to have been a cultural backwater, one that was hardly ever reached by the major cultural and technological changes taking place in late prehistoric continental cultures. For people living away from the ocean, the latter is often seen as an obscure threat, an awful obstacle, a liquid wall isolating continental masses and cultures from one another. However, the ocean was always used as a passageway, a link between peoples, and, later regions bordering the Atlantic, from the south of the Iberian Peninsula to the North Sea (Cunliffe 2001: 21–63). In this vast sea-space, the Armorican peninsula, situated at the articulation between two maritime zones — the Bay of Biscay to the south, the Irish Sea and the English Channel to the north — was a place where various cultural influences would come into contact and thrive. Far from being a dead end, it was perfectly integrated, during the various phases of its long history, in the major cultural and technological currents running along the western façade of Europe.