Headhunting and the Body in Iron Age Europe

Across Iron Age Europe the human head carried symbolic associations with power fertility status gender and more. Evidence for the removal curation and display of heads ranges from classical literary references to iconography and skeletal remains. Traditionally this material has been associated with a Europe-wide head-cult and used to support the idea of a unified Celtic culture in prehistory. This book demonstrates instead how headhunting and head-veneration were practised across a range of diverse and fragmented Iron Age societies. Using case studies from France Britain and elsewhere it explores the complex and subtle relationships between power religion warfare and violence in Iron Age Europe.