Celts, Helvetii and their neighbors

The first lecture, after recalling the history of research since the ^mid-19th century and the highlights of Swiss archaeology (dendrochronology, Celtic necropolises from the^5th to the ^1st century BC, the eponymous La Tène site...), focused on the phenomena of continuity in land occupation during the ^1st millennium BC, from the end of the Bronze Age to the beginning of the Roman era. While the presence of a Helvetian is attested by a graffito in Mantua around 300 BC, it's not clear where he came from: southern Germany, according to some ancient sources (Tacitus in particular), or the Swiss Plateau, based on archaeological data? Material culture" (funerary ritual, costume, archaeological furniture, etc.), on the other hand, makes it possible to distinguish between the Alpine peoples of the Valais (Nantuates, Veragres, Sedunes, Uberes), the Grisons and Ticino south of the Alps (Rhetes, Lepontians), the Helvetians of the Swiss Plateau and their neighbors in Geneva (Allobroges) and the Basel region (Rauraques). The archaeology of the territory attributed to the Helvetians, following Caesar's Bellum gallicum, shows two distinct areas of concentrated finds, one to the west, which we are tempted to attribute to the Tigurin pagus, and the other to the east, marked by the flagrant absence of witnesses between them.