Tracing the Celts

The Celts left no single country behind them, only a trail of fortified towns, princely graves and salt-carved landscapes. From the Danube’s banks to the Swiss lakes, their roads crossed rivers and ridges, their coins travelled from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, and their princes were buried with Greek bronze and Etruscan gold. This route follows that trail through the places where archaeologists still read the story in earthworks, museum cases and half-remembered names.

A merchant city on the Danube

Near Ingolstadt, where the Danube bends eastward, the flat fields of Manching conceal the remains of a city that once matched anything north of the Alps. Begun in the third century BC, it stood at the crossing of two long-distance routes—one north–south, one east–west—and beside a dead arm of the river turned into a harbour. By the second half of the second century BC the settlement covered 380 hectares within a seven-kilometre wall and housed between five and ten thousand people. Merchants unloaded Baltic amber and southern wine from ships that tied up inside the ramparts. In 1999 a hoard of 483 Boii shell-staters and a 217-gram gold lump was unearthed close to the docks, a reminder of the wealth that passed through the gates.

The hilltop capital of the Haedui

High above the valleys of the Saône, Yonne, Seine and Loire stands the Mont Beuvray, crowned by the oppidum of Bibracte. In 58 BC Caesar faced the Helvetii on its slopes, and in 52 BC Vercingetorix rode down to take command of the Gallic armies. The 135-hectare stronghold enclosed mines, forges and minting workshops, and its two ramparts enclosed more than 200 hectares. After the Roman conquest the town lived on as a centre of cult and aristocratic life until its people drifted away, leaving only the silent walls and the museum that now tells their story.

The fortress that broke Vercingetorix

On the Mont Auxois above Alise-Sainte-Reine the Mandubii built one of Gaul’s largest oppida, a plateau two kilometres long guarded by cliffs and ramparts. In 52 BC Caesar’s seventy thousand legionaries and Vercingetorix’s twenty thousand warriors clashed here for thirty days until hunger forced surrender. The Romans then laid out a Gallo-Roman town with temples, forum, theatre and workshops, its streets paved and its walls built of stone and timber. The plateau still bears the scars of the siege rings and the later city that rose from them.

A prince’s mountain in Hesse

The Glauberg rises 276.5 metres above the Wetterau, its steep sides crowned by a reconstructed hillfort and a museum called Keltenwelt. Beneath the turf lie two princely burial mounds of the early La Tène period, furnished with torcs, fluted jugs and the life-size stone figure known as the Celtic Prince. The finds show that whoever lay here commanded a network that stretched from the Alps to the North Sea, and the museum now guards that evidence in display cases and research rooms.

From Celtic oppidum to Roman legion

Where the Aare and Reuss meet in modern Windisch, the Romans planted their legionary fortress of Vindonissa on ground once held by a Celtic oppidum. From AD 14 to 101 the legions XIII, XXI and XI marched through its gates, while a civilian town grew up to the south with forum and amphitheatre. The northern gate watched over river traffic, and behind it a rubbish mound grew so high that today it yields thousands of wooden writing tablets that speak of daily life in the ranks. The site’s strategic position made it a crossroads for goods and armies alike.

A lost city rediscovered in the Oberaargau

Buried beneath the fields of Roggwil, the Fryburg oppidum was never mentioned in any ancient text. Built between 80 and 50 BC, it vanished from memory for two thousand years until archaeologists spotted its outlines in 2008. Excavations revealed a mint, metal workshops and imported luxuries, all enclosed by a mighty wall on twenty-three hectares. Today two information panels guide walkers across the open fields where the city once stood, its story told only by the earth.

The giant enclosure on the Swabian Alb

North-east of Bad Urach the Heidengraben spreads across 16.6 square kilometres, its double ramparts enclosing the Elsachstadt settlement and four fortified gateways. From the first century BC this was a hub for trade moving west–east across the Alb, and finds of Italian wine amphorae and Celtic coins prove its reach. A modern centre now offers multimedia displays and a viewing tower that looks down on the grass-grown walls and burial mounds outside.

The highest peak of the North Palatinate

The Donnersberg massif climbs to 686.5 metres and carries the Keltenwall, a prehistoric rampart that once controlled the surrounding valleys. Five ruined castles, the Ludwigsturm lookout and the Donnersberger Waldhaus share the slopes with geotopes protected since 2019. From the summit the view takes in Rheinhessen and the Pfalz plain, while the Keltenhütte below offers a place to rest among the beech and oak woods.

A prince’s stronghold in the Swabian Alb

On a wooded ridge near Zwiefalten the Große Heuneburg guards the entrance to the Lonetal. Its trapezoidal main citadel of five hectares and a smaller forecourt were defended by stone walls as early as the eighth to sixth centuries BC. Excavations in 2016 uncovered a dry-stone wall and building foundations, while the terraces that once framed the site still show in the landscape. The site links the Heuneburg near Hundersingen with the Alte Burg at Langenenslingen, forming one of the earliest power centres of early Celtic Europe.

The ring-wall above the Wetterau

Eleven kilometres north-east of Wetzlar the Dünsberg rises to 498 metres, its summit encircled by three ramparts that still stand ten metres high in places. The interior holds terraces, workshops and storage pits, and the site’s iron ore made it rich in the Iron Age. Systematic excavations from 1903 to 2004 uncovered fourteen gateways and proved continuous occupation from the third century BC until the Roman advance.

A royal seat in the Taunus

Between the ridges of the Uselsbachtal the Heidetränk-Oppidum stretches across 130 hectares, its long ramparts and six gate towers marking the late La Tène heyday. Inside, 160 house platforms and hearths were found, while a linear ditch-and-bank system guarded the Goldgrube ridge. A circular walk now leads from the U-Bahn station at Oberursel-Hohemark past information boards that explain the layout of acropolis, upper town and lower town.

A refuge on the Taunus skyline

The Altkönig summit at 798 metres carries a ring-wall from about 400 BC, two concentric lines enclosing twenty-six hectares with gates to the east and south-west. Probably a refuge or princely seat, it was occupied only briefly, yet later finds show use in the fourth and fifth centuries AD and even sixteenth-century huts built by French ra