Far from barbarism
The imaged passed on by old schoolbooks of slovenly ancestors living in cabins fades with each visit to an exhibition or museum devoted to the Gauls. Refined jewelry, technically advanced arms, pottery with clean lines, and everything else in the material culture of the Gauls, distances them from the Barbarians described by ancient texts and historic accounts from the 19th century.
As with all Protohistoric peoples without writing, their daily life is revealed through archaeology. The material culture of the Salyens of Entremont shows that this group mastered its natural environment in a far from “barbaric” manner. As shown by their wood, stone, metal and glass work, as well as their pottery, weaving, animal husbandry and agriculture, they possessed a technical know-how equivalent to that of all the large pre-industrial groups, until the time they yielded to the violence of Rome and Marseilles.
