Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Clinicians are embracing AI faster than hospitals can handle, report finds

Clinicians' needs for AI are outpacing health systems.
Copyright Cleared/Canva


By Marta Iraola Iribarren
Published on

Healthcare professionals are saving weeks of working time each year thanks to AI, but health systems are struggling to keep pace with demand, according to a new report by Philips.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping healthcare, from the way clinicians take notes during a consultation to how informed they arrive at an appointment

The report, Future Health Index 2026, carried out by the health technology giant Philips, aimed to quantify and measure the exact impacts of AI on doctors' and nurses' daily tasks.

It found that clinicians' use of AI-enabled tools provided by their organisation has increased in the past year.

More than eight in 10 healthcare professionals said they are optimistic that AI can improve patient outcomes, up 4 percentage points from 2025, and seven in 10 believe the benefits already outweigh the risks.

“This is the first year where the signals from the clinicians are that actually AI is having an impact that's measurable by them, or at least they sense it,” Shez Partovi, Chief Innovation Officer at Philips, told Euronews Health.

Partovi said that one of the main results of wider AI use in healthcare settings is time-saving, something especially valuable in systems already strained by workforce shortages.

“That time is resulting in better work-life balance, less stress, less overtime, more time with patients, more equity, and access.”

The report included answers from more than 2,000 clinicians and over 20,000 patients in 10 countries: Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Close to half of the clinicians (46%) said that thanks to AI, they save at least 132 hours annually, equivalent to more than three full working weeks. Those who reported saving the most time from administrative or non-clinical tasks were nurses.

“Nurses led the way, and they said, will you give that time back to me? I put it into collaboration with other clinicians, I put into spending more time with patients, more time reflecting on the case itself, the patient's medical information, and what I need to do,” Partovi said.

Around 71% of medical professionals reported improved workflow efficiency, and 50% said AI has increased their capacity to see more patients.

The benefits extend beyond work itself. Around 50% said AI has improved their work-life balance and reduced their stress levels.

How are clinicians using AI?

Some of the most commonly reported uses of AI involve administrative tasks such as transcribing clinical notes or scheduling patient appointments.

Clinicians also reported using it as a “buddy” to discuss work-related ideas, speed up X-rays, or flag dangerous drug combinations.

The report found that 39% of respondents have already seen AI identify or prevent potential medical errors at least three times in the past three months, and more than 65% of clinicians said that using AI has increased their confidence in decision-making.

Can health systems keep pace with AI development?

The report found that clinician demand for AI is moving quickly, sometimes faster than organisations can respond.

“There is such a high desire by clinicians to use tools that they're actually also using their own personal tools because they said that their organizations aren't moving fast enough,” said Partovi.

The report found that nearly two-thirds of healthcare professionals turn to personal AI tools when workplace options don’t meet their needs.

The tools are available, but many clinicians say they need more support to use them effectively. Seven out of 10 said that training for AI-enabled tools is unavailable, limited or inconsistent at their organisation.

“This is the first time that I recall that the adoption of the tool is so fast that the organization can't keep up,” added Partovi.

The pace of change is so rapid that organisations sometimes do not know where to begin – and it goes beyond that, questions of privacy, safety, security, governance and role-specific training all need to be addressed, he said.

How does the future look?

Nearly all healthcare professionals expect their roles to evolve due to AI. Around 96% expect it to change how they work, and 53% anticipate a significant shift in their role.

Around 44% worry about losing clinical skills through over-reliance on AI, while 37% say their role is changing faster than they’re comfortable with.

While embracing the new tools and looking for ways to incorporate them in their daily tasks, clinicians also consider it essential to keep a human in the loop.

Approximately 86% said all AI outputs require human oversight, and more than 80% said AI will never replace the relationships clinicians build with patients.

At the same time, seven out of 10 healthcare professionals believe that with the increased use of these tools, human interaction skills will become more important than ever.



Anthropic releases public version of its most powerful AI model in the US, citing new safeguards

Anthropic releases public version of its most powerful AI model in the US, citing new safeguards
A version of an artificial intelligence (AI) tool which the company said was too powerful to be released. / bne IntelliNews

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By bne IntelliNews June 10, 2026

US-based Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, the first publicly available model in its most capable AI class, on June 9, two months after the company said an equivalent system was too dangerous to put in general circulation.

The launch sharpens a tension at the centre of the US AI industry, where firms racing to demonstrate ever-greater capability to investors are simultaneously warning that the technology is advancing faster than safety measures can keep pace, a contradiction made starker by Anthropic's confidential filing for a stock market listing days earlier.

Fable 5 draws on the same underlying technology as Claude Mythos, which Anthropic unveiled in April and restricted to a small group of organisations over fears it could be used to attack computer systems. The company said a public release was now possible because it had added safeguards that block responses on high-risk subjects such as cybersecurity, biology and chemistry, redirecting those queries to a less capable model, Claude Opus 4.8.

"Fable's capabilities exceed those of any model we've ever made generally available," the company said in a blog post, adding that releasing a model of that strength "comes with risks".

The safeguards trigger in under 5% of sessions and remain stricter than the company considers ideal, according to its announcement. Anthropic said an external bug bounty programme running more than 1,000 hours of testing found no universal way to bypass the model's restrictions.

Joel Pen, a member of Anthropic's technical staff, told CNBC that Fable 5 marked a significant jump in capability that required additional guardrails to prevent misuse, citing the example of a user asking how to produce the toxin ricin.

The release lands as Anthropic, led by chief executive Dario Amodei, prepares for an initial public offering after a funding round valued the firm at $965bn (£721bn), ahead of rival OpenAI. Anthropic said in May its revenue run rate had reached $47bn, up from about $10bn a year earlier.

Organisations already testing Mythos will gain access to an updated version, Claude Mythos 5, without the cybersecurity and biology limits, the company said. Firms using the earlier model have reported finding more than 10,000 critical security flaws in their systems.

Fable 5 is priced at roughly twice the level of Opus, at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens, CNBC reported.

 

Apple lays out its AI with a new Siri: Here's what to know from Tim Cook's last WWDC

CEO Tim Cook waves during the annual World Wide Developers Conference at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., Monday, June 8, 2026.
Copyright AP Photo/Noah Berger


By Pascale Davies with AP
Published on



Apple's unveiling of Siri AI comes after criticism that the company has fallen behind in the AI race.

Apple's keynote at its annual World Wide Developers Conference unveiled new and long-awaited artificial intelligence advances, including upgrades to its Siri assistant.

It was also the last one to be held by CEO Tim Cook before he turns his post over to John Ternus in September.

Cook received an extended standing ovation and told the audience he is “deeply grateful to have been on this journey with you” and said “the energy around Apple platforms has never been stronger.”

Here are the key takeaways from the event.

The new Siri AI

The new Siri, which Apple is calling Siri AI, will be available on Apple devices and will analyse what is on a user’s screen and incorporate information from a person’s Apple devices to better answer questions.

Apple emphasised a focus on privacy and day-to-day use as the iPhone maker tries to catch up to rivals when it comes to AI.

It will be available both in a standalone app and throughout the company’s software, and Apple plans to launchSiri AI in beta later this year.

Apple said Siri is now a “much more capable assistant” that can help users find what they need and get things done across various Apple devices.

For instance, it can create a menu and gather recipes from the web or from your own text messages for a World Cup viewing party and invite friends from a group chat.

Siri mode on your camera, meanwhile, can tell you what you are looking at and give you relevant information, such as the nutritional details of a plate of food.

Siri's visual intelligence also works with images on your screen. For example, it can tell you whether a backpack you are thinking of getting will work as a carry-on for a flight or whether a pair of bulky hiking boots will fit inside it.

Apple focuses on helpful AI

Apple software chief Craig Federighi took some swipes at AI companies — without naming them — that seem to be “pursuing AI for the sake of AI” without clear regard for the people it is supposed to serve.

At Apple, he said, “we believe that truly helpful AI should be centred around you and your needs,” which means integrating AI into the products people use every day while prioritising privacy.

Apple is partnering with Google on the models that will power its new Siri and other features.

Apple also announced improvements to its popular AI photo editing tools, including spatial reframing that lets you adjust how a photo is framed after it was taken — as if you had moved the camera to a better position while you were snapping the picture.

Apple's announcement follows Google's and OpenAI's launches of tools that allow users to incorporate photos and other media into AI queries.

A standalone Siri AI app will launch later this year, though Apple said it will not initially be available in Europe and it won't be available in China while the company works out regulatory issues.

Tim Cook's last WWDC

Cook announced his retirement in April, ending a 15-year run that saw the company’s market value soar by more than $4 trillion (€3.47tn) during an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity.

Ternus has been with Apple for the past quarter century, including the past five years overseeing the engineering underlying the iPhone, iPad and Mac — a role that made him a prime candidate to succeed Cook.

Ternus did not take the main stage during Monday’s event.

The transition to a new CEO comes at a pivotal time for Apple. Artificial intelligence has proved the most disruptive force in the technology industry since Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007 — and Apple, the company he built, has been slow to keep up.

The firm stumbled in its efforts to deliver AI features it promised nearly two years ago, and has yet to fully recover lost ground. Cook called his time at Apple “the honour of a lifetime.”

“I truly believe the best is still ahead.”


AI, Creative Destruction, And The Politicization Of Economic Change – OpEd



June 10, 2026 
By Joseph Solis-Mullen

Throughout history, innovation has often provoked worry, and artificial intelligence has become the latest source of economic anxiety. Workers fear displacement, recent graduates worry that entry-level jobs may disappear, and politicians increasingly speak of the need to manage the transition. Across the world, governments are searching for ways to soften the disruptive effects of a technology that promises dramatic increases in productivity.

The debate is often framed as a struggle between technological progress and employment. But that is not the real issue. The more important question is whether economic decisions will remain economic or become increasingly political.

China’s response to artificial intelligence offers an early glimpse of this dilemma.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Chinese officials surveyed major employers about the likely impact of AI on their workforces. Some firms reportedly estimated that full implementation could eliminate 30 percent or more of existing positions. The response from Beijing was telling. Rather than allowing firms to adapt as they saw fit, regulators reportedly began warning employers—particularly technology companies with younger workforces—not to cut jobs as they embraced AI.


The concern is understandable. China’s economy is already struggling with slowing growth, a prolonged property crisis, and persistently high youth unemployment. For a regime that derives much of its legitimacy from economic performance and social stability, the prospect of AI-driven labor displacement presents a serious political challenge.

Yet this episode illustrates a broader truth about government intervention: political leaders inevitably view economic questions through a political lens.

For a business owner, the relevant question is straightforward: how can labor and capital be combined most effectively to satisfy consumer demand? For politicians, however, the primary concern is often social stability. The worker who loses his job is visible and immediate. The future jobs, industries, and opportunities that innovation may create remain unseen. This difference in perspective creates a powerful temptation to intervene.

More than a century ago, Joseph Schumpeter described capitalism as a process of “creative destruction.” Economic progress does not occur because existing patterns of production remain unchanged. It occurs because entrepreneurs continually discover better ways to satisfy consumers. New technologies, business models, and production methods replace older ones. Some firms expand while others fail. Some occupations disappear while new ones emerge.

The destructive side of this process attracts headlines. The creative side is often overlooked because it unfolds gradually and unpredictably.

History is filled with examples. The automobile displaced the horse-and-buggy industry. Mechanization dramatically reduced agricultural employment. The computer eliminated countless clerical tasks that once required armies of workers. Had governments successfully prevented these transitions in order to preserve existing jobs, economic growth would have stagnated and living standards would be far lower today. Artificial intelligence is simply the latest chapter in this story.

Austrians, such as F. A. Hayek and others, understood that a key problem facing policymakers is one of knowledge. No government official possesses the information necessary to determine how resources should be allocated throughout a complex economy. Those decisions emerge through the market process itself, guided by prices, profit-and-loss signals, and entrepreneurial judgment.

When governments intervene to preserve particular jobs or industries, they do not eliminate economic change. They merely substitute political preferences for market signals.

China’s emerging approach to AI demonstrates this problem. Beijing wants firms to adopt productivity-enhancing technologies while simultaneously minimizing workforce reductions. These objectives may appear compatible in the short run, but they become increasingly difficult to reconcile as AI capabilities improve.

After all, the very reason firms invest in labor-saving technologies is that they enable greater output with fewer inputs. If artificial intelligence allows a company to accomplish the work of ten employees with six, forcing the company to retain all ten workers may satisfy a political objective, but it does not alter the underlying economics. It simply raises costs and reduces efficiency. Such policies can delay adjustment, but they do so at a price.

The real danger is not that governments will fail to stop technological change. In many cases, they can slow it considerably. Regulations, mandates, legal restrictions, and subsidies can preserve existing economic arrangements for years or even decades.

The danger is that slowing creative destruction also slows the creation of new wealth.


Resources tied up in politically-protected activities are resources that cannot flow toward more productive uses, firms become less competitive, investment declines, innovation slows, economic growth weakens. In attempting to protect workers from the disruptions of change, policymakers often reduce the prosperity upon which future employment depends. This lesson extends beyond China.

In the United States, calls for government intervention are already growing. California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order seeking ways to assist workers displaced by AI. Such measures may appear modest today, but they reflect the same underlying impulse: the belief that policymakers can successfully manage the economic consequences of technological change. That belief should be viewed with skepticism.

No politician, regulator, or planning agency knows which occupations artificial intelligence will ultimately eliminate, just as none could have predicted the countless professions created by the automobile, the personal computer, or the internet. The future shape of the economy is not known in advance, it is discovered through entrepreneurial experimentation.

This is why the debate over AI is ultimately not about technology, it is about whether economic change will be guided by market processes or political considerations.

Artificial intelligence may indeed transform entire industries. Some occupations will shrink, others will disappear, new ones will emerge. Such disruption is neither novel nor avoidable; it is a normal feature of economic progress.

The greater danger lies elsewhere. As governments confront the uncertainties created by AI, they may become increasingly tempted to subordinate economic rationality to political objectives. China’s response offers a warning of where that path can lead. The challenge is not to stop creative destruction, it is to resist the urge to politicize it.

This article was also published by the Mises Institute


About Joseph Solis-Mullen

A graduate of Spring Arbor University and the University of Illinois, Joseph Solis-Mullen is a political scientist and graduate student in the economics department at the University of Missouri. A writer and blogger, his work can be found at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Eurasia Review, Libertarian Institute, and Sage Advance. You can contact him through his website http://www.jsmwritings.com or find him on Twitter.

View all posts by Joseph Solis-Mullen →

As Warfare Evolves Virtual Wargaming Opens Up New Avenues For Militaries

By

By Kjeld Neubert

(EurActiv) — In a conference room opposite NATO headquarters last week, Lockheed Martin demonstrated what it believes is the future of wargaming: the ability to test battlefield decisions quickly and in a risk-free environment.

There were no tedious Excel sheets, no physical maps on large conference room tables, and no troops or equipment that had to be moved, which typically requires weeks, if not months, of planning.

Instead, as in a video game (the imagery, courtesy of the gaming animation platform Unreal Engine, only reinforces that fact), military units moved across a chain of islands in the southwest Pacific.

In one scenario, defenders relied heavily on long-range ATACMS missiles to repel an amphibious assault. They inflicted losses but failed to stop enemy troops from reaching shore.

In a second run-through, commanders employed longer-range Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) and improved sensing capabilities. This time, the assault is defeated before landing forces reach the beach.

The exercise is part of ACES, a modelling and simulation platform designed by Lockheed Martin to help military planners test operational decisions, assess outcomes and refine tactics without conducting costly field exercises.

“Now is the time to just go faster. And modelling and simulation is going to allow them to do that,” Raashi Quattlebaum, vice-president at Lockheed Martin, told Euractiv.

She argued that the rapid evolution of modern warfare, from drones to electronic warfare and long-range precision strikes, necessitates armed forces to change how they have “done training for so many years”.

A new capability 

Such digital tools can also “absolutely” replace some of the on-the-ground training for the military, Quattlebaum claimed.

Large-scale real-life training exercises take weeks and months to plan. NATO’s multi-domain training exercises, such as Cold Response in the Arctic, can take over a year to complete. That makes them slow and rare.

Digital modelling and simulation technology can now incorporate the real-world specifications of any weapon system, enabling military leaders to run an unlimited number of what-if scenarios.

Extensive reports are then generated, delivering conclusions on why certain outcomes occurred and how they could be changed.

For European militaries seeking to improve coordination and preparedness, as the US starts rotating troops and equipment out of the region to pivot towards other theatres, the technology could also provide a way to test multinational operations and logistics chains.

A scenario could, for instance, examine how ammunition supplies would reach the frontlines weeks into a conflict.

Quattlebaum added that the analyses could enable officials to identify potential capability gapsand support “their long-term modernisation decisions”.

“Europe would be able to improve all of their coordination, all of their communication, common operational understanding, and they’ll be able to synchronise all of their assets together across countries,” Quattlebaum said.

On the other side of the street, NATO seems to have assimilated that lesson. Last month, it conducted a week-and-a-half-long computer-assisted command post exercise, the first to include the Allied Command Operations headquarters.

Steadfast Deterrence 2026 was “designed to replicate the complexities in the Arctic and the High North, integrating real-world plans, cutting-edge simulation technologies and AI-enabled warfighting platforms,” Major General Ruprecht von Butler, the commander of NATO’s Joint Warfare Centre (JWC), said in a statement.

 

  
ARCHAEOLOGY

The Mirror Of Neolithic Art: How Çatalhöyük Confronts The Hubris Of The Modernist Perspective – Analysis



The famous wall painting from Çatalhöyük depicts tightly clustered domestic houses beneath an erupting volcano. Photo/Illustration by Asya Denk.


June 10, 2026 
By Erdem Denk

The theme for an exhibition that opened on June 4, 2026, at Ankara University’s Faculty of Political Science (Mülkiye), World’s First City Plan/Map, as part of my Arkeopolitics initiative, was met with reservations by a group of students from the Middle East Technical University’s faculty of architecture.They questioned how the map—exhibited in the Çatalhöyük section of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations—could be called a work of art, reflecting the flawed modern perspective.

A young architect candidate objected and said: “Professor, how can this be a map? The houses are seen from above the (plan), but the mountain is seen from the profile (section). There is a serious perspective error here. Furthermore, a ‘mind’ capable of drawing a map could not have developed in that period.”

“In that case, should we also consider Picasso’s works irrational?” I responded.

Even though the hubris of the modern mind did not show at that exact moment, it was actually an “aha!” moment, the impact of which has been felt over time.


The people of Çatalhöyük depicted the world not “as it is”—in the sense we claim to understand today—but “as they felt and conceptualized it.” The truth is that the rational, perspectival gaze, or what we call “as it is,” is nothing more than a form that the modern mind “feels and conceptualizes” the world through. Therefore, the map is a work of art within its own period and context.
The Çatalhöyük Gaze

That bird’s-eye view that we see through drones today was a daily reality for the Çatalhöyük residents. In a settlement with no streets, where entry to houses was through roofs, life flowed on the rooftops. Socializing, working, and playing took place in the shared public space stretching across the roofs. Thus, the artists drawing the city depicted it from the angle they knew best—from above—and it was not a technical inadequacy or deficiency; on the contrary, it was sociological honesty. In fact, the equal stature of all the houses in the drawing also revealed the egalitarian structure of the settlement. They simply did not know (and see!) it any other way.

As for the mountain being shown from the front, besides its conformity to human vision and reality, it points to a colossal shared/natural constant that either threatened the entire city and/or held it at its skirts to give it its identity.

The claim that the “mountain” was the well-known “leopard skin” was also quite popular for a time, partly fueled by the notion that it could not be a map (so much so that Stephanie Meece wrote in her article that attributing cartography, which she deemed a Western phenomenon, skill, and invention, to Çatalhöyük was absurd). However, other studies replicating how a leopard skin is cut and splayed open have largely marginalized this view. Besides, a shape that erupts is highly likely to be a mountain. Today, we know that Mount Hasan, which looms on the horizon of Çatalhöyük, erupted while the Çatalhöyük settlement existed. We also know that obsidian, the industrial raw material that gave the settlement its character, came from it and other volcanoes in the region.

In short, nothing could be more natural than for the “mountain”—with its socioeconomic and sociopsychological significance for the settlement—to shape the art of the period, including the way it was depicted. Especially considering the importance a mountain (and a cave) held in almost all societies, from Upper Paleolithic shamanism to monotheistic religions.

The only significant complication here lies in the perspective of the depiction: the higher of the mountain’s two cones appears on the right side of the wall painting, whereas it is actually on the left when looking directly from Çatalhöyük, which is located just more than 100 kilometers away from the mountain. Crucially, this higher cone appears on the right only when viewed from Aşıklıhöyük—the pioneering settlement situated almost at the very foothills of the mountain. Given the roughly 150-year historical transition between the two sites, a direct cultural representation from Aşıklıhöyük seems unlikely. Alternatively, since geological hypotheses suggesting a later structural shift or eruption-induced alteration in the crater’s topography are highly implausible, it is far more rational to consider this specific rendering as the perspective or narrative of those who might have traveled directly to the base of the mountain for obsidian extraction.


In this sense, instead of capitulating to the modernist perspective that strips the painting of its cartographic value just because it lacks contemporary conventions, this composition should be recognized as a map in its own right—one that perfectly served the practical and existential needs of its own era. Much like the widely discussed interpretations of Upper Paleolithic cave art—where non-hunting depictions of animals are viewed as markers tracking seasonal paths, or where representations like the “Gargas hands” are interpreted as early “mapping” to signal game and demarcate secure travel routes—this rendering stands as a foundational cartographic practice: a vital transfer of a landscape’s economic and symbolic center of gravity onto a spatial plane.

After all, as we know from the enduring debates surrounding the Mercator projection, the modern era’s two-dimensional cartography is anything but an objective reflection of reality; by stretching the globe from the north, it systematically constructed a deeply Eurocentric worldview that we have long misconstrued as “normal.” Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the bewildered reaction of students seeing the Gall-Peters map on my office wall for the first time mirrors the same cognitive dissonance as the architecture student who confidently dismissed the Çatalhöyük painting for its apparent lack of “proper” perspective. It seems the modern mind simply cannot tolerate any reality that refuses to fit into its indoctrinated geometric grid.

The Relationship Between Art and Modernity


What is art? What about perspective and/or intellect? Or let us ask this way: Is the prescribed mode of thought that we call the perspective of the modern mind the only absolute way of seeing and showing reality? After all, wasn’t it the modern mind that warned us against unfalsifiable, single, and absolute truths?

Perhaps the real distortion belongs to the modern mind, which mistakes its own singular, rigid perspective for absolute objective reality. So, who is truly lacking perspective here? The Çatalhöyük artist who integrated multiple dimensions of lived experience onto a single wall, or the modern observer who looks at that wall and sees only a “technical error”?

Fortunately, we have mirrors like the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara—where this unique wall painting is housed—and countless other institutions across every corner of the globe that safeguard the monumental heritage of the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras. These spaces invite us to break free from the shackles of the prescribed modern mind. That is, of course, if we are ready to accept what we so condescendingly label as “prehistory”—believing that history only begins when a society expresses itself through a script we happen to have successfully deciphered—is actually a rich history filled with sophisticated products of intellect and art. After all, Homo sapiens, who have existed for roughly 250,000 years—and the Neanderthals, who went extinct about 40,000 years ago—possessed art and engaged profoundly with their environments, both to share their narratives within, between, and beyond generations, and to survive in a symbiotic relationship with the spaces they inhabited.

A shorter version of this article was published in Turkish in Ankale Sanat, June 3, 2026. This article was produced by Human Bridges.

Author Bio:
  Erdem Denk is a professor of international law and international relations at Ankara University and the founder of the transdisciplinary research initiative Arkeopolitics, which integrates archaeology, history, political theory, and legal history to reinterpret the long-term dynamics of human societies. His research focuses on the evolution of law and social order since the Paleolithic. He is the author of The 50,000-Year World Order: Societies and Their Laws (2021, in Turkish) and is currently working on three books, in Turkish and English, titled When There Was No State, The Invention of the State, and The Story of the State.
View all posts by Erdem Denk →


 

Archaeological sensation: Iron Age Celtic grave discovered in Hesse

Slate outcrop on the Dombach, Bad Camberg
Copyright GerritR, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

By Nela Heidner
Published on

During surveys for a solar park in Hesse, archaeologists uncovered a Celtic princely tomb with exceptional grave goods near Bad Camberg, a find of European significance, according to Hesse’s state archaeologist Udo Recker.

During construction work for a solar park, a Celtic princely grave has been uncovered for the first time. Experts classify the discovery and the artefacts it yielded as exceptionally significant.

Among the grave goods recovered are several gold rings, an Etruscan beaked jug probably imported from what is now Tuscany in Italy, as well as the remains of weapons. Archaeologists also found traces of a two-wheeled wagon, including non-ferrous metal fittings from the wheel hubs and axle caps and iron tyre fittings. The finds suggest that the person buried there was probably a man, explained archaeologist Udo Recker.

The discovery makes it possible to prove “the previously only assumed presence of a local Celtic elite”.

Celtic wagon burial

The grave is now to be analysed using state-of-the-art investigative methods. The archaeologists hope this will provide new insights into the lives of people in the Iron Age more than 2,000 years ago.

Imaging techniques such as X-rays and CT scans point to further finds in the grave that still need to be uncovered.

The burial site can be dated to the middle of the first millennium before Christ. The find can be assigned to the so-called Hunsrück-Eifel culture.

According to the experts, it is one of the rare Celtic wagon burials. In Hesse only around three comparable graves are known to date – none of them matches the quality of the finds from Bad Camberg.

A completely different social structure

Compared with today, Celtic society was structured in a completely different way.

As the Celts left no written records, archaeologists and historians rely primarily on ancient accounts from Greek and Roman times and on archaeological finds. The Celts did not form a cohesive people or an early European nation, but in the Iron Age lived in numerous independent tribal groupings.

These groups were linked by a common Indo-European language family and by similar cultural characteristics, traditions, beliefs and ways of life. Out of the Bronze Age cultures of Central Europe developed the two defining Celtic periods: the Hallstatt culture (c. 650–450 BC) and the La Tène culture (c. 450–50 BC).

Politically, the Celts were organised in a decentralised way – there was no shared system of rule or overarching kings. In addition to tribal leaders and princes, druids played a central role as religious and intellectual authorities. They acted at the same time as priests, healers, teachers and judges.

The decline of the Celts did not happen abruptly, but over several centuries. Decisive above all was the expansion of the Roman Empire: many Celtic territories were conquered and incorporated into Roman rule, especially after the campaigns of Julius Caesar in Gaul in the 1st century BC.

Tribal confederations instead of a single community

Because the Celts lived in numerous independent tribal confederations and did not form a political unit, they were only able to oppose external powers to a limited extent. There was also a gradual cultural adaptation to the Roman way of life – language, administration and customs were adopted in many places. In other regions, Celtic groups were also displaced by Germanic tribes or integrated into new societies.

The Celts have not, however, disappeared entirely: in regions such as Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany, Celtic languages and cultural traditions have been preserved. Today’s Celtic languages (such as Irish, Welsh or Breton) go back to this heritage.

The investigations of the current finds in Bad Camberg are being carried out jointly by experts from “Hessen-Archäologie”, the research centre of the Celtic World at Glauberg, and the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology in Mainz.