LUXEMBOURG
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L U X E M B O U R G
Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg,
French: Grand-Duché de Luxembourg,
German: Großherzogtum Luxemburg),
also spelled Luxemburg, is a small landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. Luxembourg has a population of under half a million people in an area of approximately 2,586 square kilometres (999 sq mi).[1]
Luxembourg is a parliamentary representative democracy with a constitutional monarchy, ruled by a Grand Duke. It is the world's only remaining sovereign Grand Duchy. The country has a highly developed economy, with the highest Gross Domestic Product per capita in the world (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency 2007). Its historic and strategic importance dates back to its founding as a Roman era fortress site and Frankish count's castle site in the Early Middle Ages. It was an important bastion along the Spanish road when Spain was the principal European power influencing the whole western hemisphere and beyond in the 14th–17th centuries.
Luxembourg is a founding member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, Benelux, and the Western European Union, reflecting the political consensus in favour of economic, political, and military integration. The city of Luxembourg, the capital and largest city, is the seat of several institutions and agencies of the European Union.
Luxembourg lies on the cultural divide between Romance Europe and Germanic Europe, borrowing customs from each of the distinct traditions. Luxembourg is a trilingual country; French, German, and Luxembourgish are official languages.
Although a secular state, Luxembourg is predominantly Roman Catholic.
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Titelberg, a Celtic oppidum:
the ramparts
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Celtic Luxembourg existed during the period from roughly 600 BC until 100 AD, when the Celts inha-
bited what is now the territory of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Their culture was well developed, especially from the 1st century BC as can be seen from the remains of the extensive Titelberg site in the far southwest of the country and from the impressive finds in several tombs and necropolises in
the Moselle valley and its surroundings.
The Celts inhabited large areas of Europe from the Danube to the Rhine and Rhône during the 6th to 1st centuries BC, a period sometimes referred to as La Tène after a site in Switzerland where Celtic remains were discovered in 1857. It was around 100 BC that the Treveri, one of the Celtic tribes, entered a period of prosperity. They constructed a number of fortified settlements or oppida near
the Moselle valley in what is now southern Luxembourg, western Germany and eastern France.
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Early inhabitants
In the territory now covered by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there is evidence of primitive inhabitants right back to the Paleolithic or old stone age over 35,000 years ago. The oldest artifacts from this period are decorated bones found at Oetrange.
However, the first real evidence of civilization is from the Neolithic or 5th millennium BC when houses began to appear. Traces have been found in the south of Luxembourg at Grevenmacher, Diekirch, Aspelt and Weiler-la-Tour. The dwellings were made of a combination of tree trunks for the basic structure, mud-clad wickerwork walls, and roofs of thatched reeds or straw. Pottery from this period has been found near Remerschen.
While there is not much evidence of communities in Luxembourg at the beginning of the Bronze Age, a number of sites dating back to the period between the 13th and the 8th century BC provide evidence of dwellings and reveal artifacts such as pottery, knives and jewelry. These include Nospelt, Dalheim, Mompach and Remerschen.
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