You have full access to this open access article. The Iron Age in continental Europe is a period of profound cultural and biological importance with heterogeneous trends through space and time. Regional overviews are therefore useful for better understanding the main cultural and biological patterns characterizing this period across the European regions. For the area of modern Switzerland, a rich archeological and anthropological record represents the Late Iron Age.
However, no review of the main anthropological and funerary patterns for this period is available to date. Here we assess the available demographic, paleopathological, funerary, and isotopic data for the Late Iron Age in the Swiss territory, and summarize the cultural and biological patterns emerging from the available literature.
Finally, we highlight a series of research avenues for future studies. Normally defined as the time between the eighth century BCE and the territorial spread of the Roman Empire Table 1 , the Iron Age in Continental Europe featured important biocultural changes Champion et al. These included profound social, economic, and political innovations, as well as the development of distinctive forms of artistic expression Champion et al. The establishment and development of networks between different regions and cultures led to a substantial flow of ideas and people, a pattern that anticipates the Roman Empire biocultural mosaic.
Although featuring important cultural similarities across regions, the Iron Age was also characterized by marked socioeconomic and biocultural heterogeneity with effects on human lifestyle and biology Kruta ; Laffranchi et al. We need a contextualized overview of these processes when we try to evaluate the biocultural relevance of the Iron Age and its relationships with preceding and subsequent periods, namely the Bronze Age and Roman Times.
The Roman occupation of Swiss territories started around BCE in the southern region of Ticino, followed by the southwestern region of Geneva around 55 BCE. The Swiss Iron Age includes an earlier and a later phase Champion et al.
