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REVIEWS CELTIC CHIEFDOM, CELTIC STATE. THE EVOLUTION OF COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS IN PREHISTORIC EUROPE. Edited by Bettina Arnold and D. Blair Gibson. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xi, 159. £ 30.00. The tremendous expansion in archaeological work on prehistoric Celtic peoples has revealed a great variety of evidence including late Halstatt hillforts such as Heuneburg and elite burials such as Eberdingen- Hochdorf, and the later La Tene oppida such as Bibracte. Through the import of Mediterranean drinking equipment there is tangible proof of contacts with the Classical world. But what social structures lie behind such archaeological evidence and how did these evolve during the first millennium BC? Indeed, would it be true to describe the Celtic territories on the eve of the Roman conquest, with their proto-urban oppida, coinage and emerging literacy, as states? If so, to what extent were these states the products of internal change and to what extent were they transformed by increasing contact with the Mediterranean? These are some of the questions addressed in this extremely wide- ranging book which consists of thirteen papers commissioned from archaeologists, anthropologists and historians in the United States, Britain, France and Germany. Its aim is to initiate a dialogue on the changing nature of Celtic societies, 'between otherwise isolated national schools as well as between segregated disciplines' (p.9). The first three quarters of the book are concerned with reviewing the evidence for the changing social organization of Late Halstatt and La Tene Celtic Europe from a variety of standpoints. Perhaps the most important thing to emerge is, on the one hand, the increasing complexity of the archaeological evidence, for example the differences in the layout and functions of oppida, and, on the other, the considerable gaps in our archaeological knowledge. There has always been the tendency to concentrate on visually obvious sites, such as hillforts or rich grave