• Jewellery and  tableware – still made of bronze
• A closer look – how a bronze situla was made
• Wine and ritual
• The Raetians and their southern neighbours
• The Raetian house
   

Jewellery and  tableware – still made of bronze

Bronze metalworkers continued to thrive in Europe even during the Iron Age, with artisans still making cast bronze jewellery and clothing adornments. The cloakpins of the Bronze age were replaced during the Iron Age by clasps. As clothing accessories, clasp designs, shapes, and sizes changed with the fashion. For this reason cloak clasps are excellent benchmarks for dating finds.
Besides jewellery, bronze-working artisans of the Iron Age also made tableware. Bronze cups, bowls, and bucket-like situlae remained luxury goods for the upper class. They were also used in ritual ceremonies and as burial objects.´
  

A closer look – how a bronze situla was made

Situlae are bucket-like vessels made from bronze sheets. The vertical seams running up the wall of the vessel are riveted. The handle was also attached with rivets. The frieze around the vessel was fashioned by hammering the sheet metal from behind with a punch. Artisans developed a range of differently shaped hammers and punches for this purpose. The precise hammer blows altered the material properties of the metal, which became increasingly hard and brittle. However, its original elasticity could be restored by heating the metal and then quenching it in water.
  

Wine and ritual

By the middle of the first millennium BC the Raetian tribes in the southern Alpine valleys were cultivating grapevines. This is evident from Iron Age vine pruning knives and cooper’s tools for making barrels. Wine played a central role in the Raetians’ ritual ceremonies. The Raetians had absorbed this custom from the Etruscans on the Po Plain, with whom they had close contact. The ceremonies are depicted on the situlae. The friezes depict grand banquets, processions with sacrificial animals, and contests. The participants drank the wine from ladles. Finds of such ladles testify to the importance of wine at feasts and ritual ceremonies.
  

The Raetians and their southern neighbours

The Raetians, who settled in the Alps, had close contact with their southern neighbours. Close links with the Etruscans and Venetians introduced technical innovations to the Alps from the Mediterranean region. These included the beam-type hand mill, which brought about a revolution in milling technology. A funnel ensured that the grist was automatically fed into the milling mechanism, and a long lever reduced the effort required for milling. Luxury goods such as spices, oil, coral, ivory, and fine bronze tableware were introduced via the Raetian region to countries north of the Alps.
Among the most important cultural achievements of the Raetians was the adoption of writing from the Etruscans. By around 500 BC various northern Etruscan alphabets were adopted in the Raetian region, including the Bolzano alphabet. 
  

The Raetian house

Beginning in the 6th century BC, the Raetian house – a model of the later Alpine farmhouse – developed in the Alpine valleys settled by the Raetians. A key feature of these Iron Age houses was a room half inset into the hillside. They had drystone walls constructed without mortar. Sometimes the inhabitants clad the stone walls with wood panelling. The entrance was often an angled corridor. The upper floor was constructed of wood. Certain rituals are associated with the construction of these houses. For example, magic objects or bowls of food were set into the walls.  A Raetian house in Eppan near Bolzano, for example, yielded a decorated bronze vessel. The Raetians used such vessels to serve wine at their feasts.