This conference focused on the monetary and pre-monetary practices during the 3rd century BC across Celtic Europe. The aim is to carry out a survey on a few selected open agglomerations that emerged in the 3rd century: Lacoste (FR), Eysses (FR), Manching (DE), Roseldorf (A), Němčice (CZ) and Nowa Cerekwia (P). All these settlements have delivered several small fragmented gold or silver ingots. These objects, poorly documented or unpublished, are often interpreted as coin blanks (intended for the production of coinage), but their unequal mass and shape seriously challenge this interpretation.

Could these small ingots not testify some pre-monetary practices such as hacksilber or hackgold (gold or silver cut by weight)? For the Iron Age, this use of the weighted and fragmented metal as money is well documented in the Iberian Peninsula, Greece or Mesopotamia, before the advent of first coins. Could not Celtic Europe have lived a similar economic evolution, passing from the use of weighted metal to the minted coins?