This construction shows an exceptional local continuity until the twentieth century, still being the normal type of farm in the lowlands of north-western Europe and the Netherlands.

The local tradition of concentrating on raising cattle was persisted by the Saxons and the Frisians, whose houses were perched on the natural hillocks in the moist plains, while all other Germanic people practiced sedentary agriculture.

Social exchange and a role in the supernatural would have been important as well (Fokkens 1999), supported by, for instance, stacks of cowhides in graves and the offerings of animals attested in both Sweden and Denmark (Rasmussen 1999: 287).

Protection against cattle raids would fit the circumstances—proven by grave goods, rock engravings and hoards—of a strong martial ideology in this era (Fokkens 1999).

These complicated cultural-economic networks that preclude precise ethnic (and thus linguistic) differentiation, supports the maintenance of late contacts between the languages ancestral to Germanic and Celtic, assuming a position of Proto-Celtic to the north of the Hallstatt culture – as supported by the known homelands of La Tène culture.