Instruments for diagnostic and treatment purposes from the la Tène period in Central Europe.

Abstract

Sources of knowledge of treatment practices in the La Tène period in Central Europe are limited. Archaeologists very often classify findings on the basis of their personal opinions which are not substantiated by evidence. The theories that have been proposed so far are not widely accepted by the academics. Artefacts that are expected to be used for diagnostics and treatment are not usually chosen to deduce the form and processes of therapeutic practice in the La Tène period. The main issue of the topic is the possibility to distinguish between tools for therapeutic procedures and artefacts created for other purposes. However, there is also the question of whether it is possible to distinguish between tools originating from Central Europe and tools originating in the Roman or Greek environment, artefacts which originated in the studied period from medieval or modern objects, and the real artefacts, for which there are no suitable analogies, from counterfeits created in the 18th‒19th centuries. For this purpose, specific debatable sets of artefacts are used. The goal of the research is to clarify the real purpose of the examined artefacts, for which it was previously proposed that they were used for therapy or diagnostics in the La Tène period. The results of the review and analysis of the artefacts have their explanatory ability about the state of practice in the studied geographical area.