Southwestern Iberian Peninsula Archaeology: Latest Developments in Final Bronze Age-Early Iron Age (original) (raw)
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MA Thesis, December 2020 This study combines long-term settlement data with short-term excavation data to explore the conditions that led late prehistoric communities in Iberia’s southwest to aggregate during the Late Bronze Age [LBA]. This long-term approach involves the application of geographic information systems [GIS] to identify settlement patterns in the Central Alentejo from the Late Neolithic [LN]/Chalcolithic to the Late Bronze Age (ca. 3500 – 800 BCE). In the Serra d’Ossa microregion of the southwest there are 176 sites that date to the Neolithic/Chalcolithic, only two that date to the EBA/MBA, and 27 that date to the LBA. This shift is directly related to the Chalcolithic “collapse” that occurred in the mid/late third millennium BCE, influenced by both sociocultural and environmental factors. The LBA of the southwest has long been defined by the emergence of a new culture associated with a concern for defensiveness and warriorship, represented on stone stelae by warrior iconography, and by the emergence of large-fortified upland sites that appear during this period. A distinct lack of small-scale settlement data has previously led to insufficient interpretations and characterizations of the period. In turn, this thesis incorporates short-term data from excavation at the large-fortified upland site of Castelo Velho da Serra d’Ossa, the one excavated example of such a site in the Serra d’Ossa microregion and one of the few excavated LBA sites in the wider southwest. The short-term excavation data are discussed in the context of the long-term settlement patterns to better characterize the LBA of the Iberian southwest, a period previously underrepresented in the region. The central focus of study is to investigate the emergence of these settlements (up to 15 ha in size) and the communities that inhabited them; considering the processes underpinning place-making and aggregation both locally and within its broader prehistoric context. Please follow this link to an Open-Access copy of the thesis: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/26709
Trabajos de Prehistoria, 2018
Archaeological investigations of the agrarian communities of the 6 th-2 nd millennia BC in the Iberian Peninsula have undergone fundamental transformations over the past 25 years. This paper attempts to provide an overview of this research by considering three topics: 1) changes in theory, perspective, and practice, 2) the discovery of new sites or site types, and 3) developments in analytical methodologies and techniques. It concludes with some thoughts about possible future challenges and directions for research. RESUMEN Las investigaciones arqueológicas de las comunidades agrarias del VI al II milenios a. C. en la Península Ibérica han sufrido transformaciones fundamentales en los últimos 25 años. Este artículo trata de proporcionar una visión general de esta investigación considerando tres temas: 1) los cambios en la teoría, la perspectiva y la práctica, 2) el descubrimiento de nuevos sitios o tipos de sitios, y 3) la evolución de las metodologías y técnicas analíticas. Se concluye con algunas reflexiones sobre posibles futuros desafíos y direcciones para la investigación.
Iron Age Archaeology in the NW Iberian Peninsula
e-Keltoi, Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, 6: 1-72. 2004.
The text offers an overview of the archaeological record of the so-called Cultura Castrexa or Hillfort Culture, corresponding to the Iron Age and part of the Indigenous-Roman period in the north-western Iberian Peninsula, traditionally considered a Celtic region. A diachronic scheme is used, showing the main features of settlement patterns and forms, locations, land use, territoriality, and material culture forms and styles for each of the phases into which the period has been traditionally divided. In closing, we offer a brief summary of the more relevant interpretative trends, followed by a brief historical reconstruction of the period based on anthropological concepts such as the Germanic Mode of Production.
The Iberian Peninsula between 300 and 850: An Archaeological Perspective
2018
Scholarship on the Iberian Peninsula in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages is burgeoning across a variety of disciplines and time periods, yet the publication profile of the field remains disjointed. 'Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia' (LAEMI) provides a publication hub for high-quality research on Iberian Studies from the fields of history, archaeology, theology and religious studies, numismatics, palaeography, music, and cognate disciplines. Another key aim of the series is to break down barriers between the excellent scholarship that takes place in Iberia and Latin America and the Anglophone world.
San Adrian: a new site for the study of the Bronze Age in northern Spain
Bronze Age studies carried out in the Cantabrian Region have traditionally focused on prestige goods and funerary contexts. As a result of this, the lack of information about daily activities, subsistence strategies, and human settlement on a regional scale was evident in the state of art. However, current research has achieved new discoveries in recent years, allowing a reconstruction of some aspects of the economic structure, settlements, material culture and the palaeoenvironment during the Bronze Age. Indeed, besides the funerary practices discovered in 1983 in San Adrian (Parztuergo Nagusia, Gipuzkoa), research has now revealed the presence of Upper Palaeolithic and Early Bronze Age occupations. This paper presents a first characterization of the retrieved evidence and a preliminary evaluation of the archaeological site and its environment. San Adrian is a tunnel-shaped cave located at 1,000 meters a.s.l. in the Aizkorri mountain range, opening a passage beneath the Atlantic-Mediterranean watershed in northern Iberia. The strategic character of this mountain site is demonstrated by the presence of Upper Palaeolithic and Bronze Age occupations, and by the construction of a road passing through it and the fortification of both its entrances in the Middle Ages. The aim of the archaeological survey started in 2008 was to identify, describe and evaluate the heritage potential of the cave, because previous fieldwork had only managed to make surface finds in the side galleries, including a medieval hoard and Bronze Age human remains. The work carried out by the research group at San Adrian includes a series of test pits and the excavation of an area nine square metres in size following stratigraphic criteria. In the current state, we identified at least two contexts corresponding to Late Upper Palaeolithic and Bronze Age occupations in the cave. Fieldwork included the sieving and flotation of sediment and the collection of samples for different types of analysis: palynology, carpology, sedimentology, and radiocarbon dating. The evidence is being studied by a multidisciplinary team according to expertise requirements for each topic: palaeobotany and environment, archaeozoology, sedimentology, geology, physical anthropology, prehistoric industries (lithics, pottery and bone) and archaeological and historical documentation. Because of its recent discovery, Upper Palaeolithic evidence remains still under study, but first results on Bronze Age layers can be presented. The ongoing archaeobotanical and archaeozoological studies reveal the exploitation of domestic plants and fauna complemented by hunting and foraging of wild species. At the same time, the archaeological artefacts and their production sequences show the exploitation of nearby resources on both sides of the mountain range, while prestige goods are absent. This evidence is also used to estimate the regularity of cave occupations and to propose a model of seasonal exploitation of the mountain environment. The results obtained reveal the exploitation of resources from both the Mediterranean and Atlantic basins, and contribute towards an understanding of the daily activities of Bronze Age societies. In addition, the evidence shows the exchange and circulation of quotidian products between the Cantabrian region and inland Iberia in other networks than those of prestige goods.
The Northwest Iberian Peninsula is not a uniform region. Geographers have divided it into two main biogeographic sub-regions: Atlantic and Mediterranean, each with its own characteristics, in terms of geomorphology and climate. The perception that these two sub-regions have distinct identities since, at least, the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE, i.e. since the Chalcolithic period, has led us to analyse separately developments in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BCE, which is viewed as a key period for understanding the emergence of the Bronze Age. During the Early Bronze Age new settlement strategies emerged in the Atlantic sub-region, associated with the appearance of innovative pottery shapes and decorations, resettlement of high-altitude areas for burial in small cairns, circulation of new prestigious metallic icons, the emergence of new styles of rock art, such as engravings of dozens of halberds, the emergence of the phenomenon of structured depositions of metallic objects, such as the deposits of halberds, or halberds and daggers, and, consequently, new social relationships, new power structures and new places for negotiating social relations, which revealed significant structural changes compared to Chalcolithic communities. In the Mediterranean sub-region, despite new locations for certain settlements, changes seem to have occurred across a broader timeframe, including the abandonment of several community and ceremonial spaces-such as walled enclosures or shelters with collective depositions-, the emergence of metallic deposits, consisting of halberds, and the timid adoption of new iconographies in rock art. These are characterised by phenomena of continuity or social resistance, and reveal that, in this region, social changes and new scenarios of power or social aggregation occurred in a manner that differed from the Atlantic sub-region. On the basis of the analysed data it seems possible to hypothesise that, during the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BCE, together with the phenomena of social resistance and permeability to new developments, the Northwest Iberian Peninsula was subjected to multiple and distinct influences that spawned the development of a mosaic of societies, apparently united and standardised by generalised phenomena. The factors that contributed to this change were multiple and distinct in each of the two sub-regions. This includes important external factors, such as the climate conditions in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE and events that occurred during the second half of this millennium, that had distinct repercussions on the two sub-regions; greater or lesser permeability to Atlantic contacts; 'dismantling' of supra-regional exchange networks with southern regions, as a result of social upheavals in the Southern Mediterranean. In terms of internal factors, it is worth highlighting the capacity for resilience and adaptation to changes. Phenomena such as the migration of populations of Pontic-Caspian origin during the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE, revealed by DNA studies of human remains from the South, Southeast, and Southwest Iberian Peninsula, are not proven for this region, and therefore will not be taken into account. Keywords: Northwest Iberian Peninsula, sub-regions, transition from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BCE, continuity or change?
The History of Iberian Archaeology: one archaeology for two Spains
In this article we set out to analyse, from a archaeological point of view, a political problem which goes beyond archaeology, as demostrated by current political debate, and even by acts of violence. Throughout the 19th century, especially in the latter half, a centralist political model for Spain was developed, which failed to find a political balance between the State and the autonomous traditions of various regions of the Iberian Peninsula. As a result of this failure, towards the end of 19th century legitimation programmes began to be constructed, based on the history of the peoples of these regions. This led to a search in protohistorical archaeology (Iberians, Celts, Tartessians, etc…) for the solution to the political problems caused by a lack of institutional agreement.
Against the backdrop of earlier descriptions of prehistoric social structures, this article will discuss the methods available for the analysis of archaeological evidence and the limits on interpretation, particularly with regard to the term ‘state’, using examples from the Bronze Age in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly in the El Argar region. The focus is on the identifi cation of meaningful parameters, basic resources and the range of target-oriented interpretative approaches.