Europe around 1000 BC was a patchwork of small chiefdoms with a prosperous agricultural base. There was a thriving trade network throughout Europe, especially in salt, copper, tin and bronze. Massive cremation cemeteries, known as urnfields, were widespread.
As the early centuries of the 1st millennium BC passed, however, there were major changes. Iron working spread rapidly and by the 6th century iron was in common use for tools and weapons, although bronze was still important for making jewellery, parade armour and other display objects.
Inhumation now replaced cremation over most of Europe, although in Britain burial seems to have been abandoned altogether by many groups. The most important members of society were often buried on wagons, sometimes even with their horses.
The period also saw a proliferation of weapons, warrior burials and hillforts. The majority of hillforts were located on hilltops or in other defensible locations. Heavily defended by massive banks, ditches and palisades, they were probably both a refuge in time of war for all the local group and the permanent stronghold of their leader and his entourage. Danebury in southern England is a classic example.
Much agriculturally marginal land cultivated in the 2nd millennium BC was by now deteriorating into bog and heath, a process probably made worse by a climatic decline - increased rainfall and a drop in temperature. Competition for land therefore developed, something which continued into later times when Classical authors recorded many instances of small or large scale migrations.
These Classical authors identified many tribal and linguistic groups from the 5th century onwards: Iberians and Ligurians in Spain and southern France, Celts in Britain, France and Central Europe, Germanic, Thracian, Geto-Dacian and other groups further north and east. Despite the migrations many of these peoples were probably already occupying these areas in the earlier 1st millennium BC.
