Hallstatt Culture

Hallstatt Culture, an early Iron Age culture in central and western Europe and the Balkans. It is named after the village of Hallstatt, about 225 km (140 mi) south-west of Vienna. In Hallstatt a necropolis containing more than 2,000 graves and a great number of artefacts was excavated between 1846 and 1899; it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

Hallstatt was an early salt-mining community with mine shafts reaching to about 400 m (1,300 ft) by the end of the Bronze Age. The Hallstatt culture was characterized by elaborate funeral rites, involving, at different stages of the epoch, both cremation and inhumation. In general, the age was marked by an increasing use of iron and an increasing skill in ironwork, although occasionally older, Bronze Age materials and techniques reappeared. Hallstatt art has endured, primarily the ironwork and bronze work and pottery, used as grave furniture and generally decorated in rigid symmetrical, repetitive, geometric patterns.

The period covered by Hallstatt culture extends from about 750 to 450 bc. It was most fully developed in upper Austria and Bavaria, later spreading westwards to Switzerland, France, the Rhineland, and as far as south-east England.