Ancient Iberia

Interesting. Listen, I've heard of an ancient city with impressive monuments around Cadiz. What can you tell us about this?

2. Chalcolithic (Copper Age):

Apart of what defines the era, the early metalurgy of soft metals: copper, gold and silver, Iberian Chalcolithic is defined by the following traits:

• An increase in trade or barter, reaching to faraway lands such as North Africa and Scandinavia.
• Increasing social complexity, best reflected in the early civilizations that will evolve in this period.
• Generalization of the Megalithic culture, with new burial types (artificial caves and tholoi) appearing.
  

2.1. Megalithism:
    The spread of Megalithism in Iberia out of the SW region is synchronous with what happens in other parts of Atlantic Europe. Since c. 3500 BCE dolmen tombs are built in all the Atlantic regions, as well as in the south. Even in the non-dolmenic areas of the interior and east the collective burial style is done as well, but normally in natural caves.


Two examples of Iberian dolmens (source)

Since c. 3000 BCE new types of megaliths are found in the most developed regions of Iberia and southern France. These are mostly of two types: artificial caves and tholoi. This appearance of new megalithic types, also found (at least in the case of the tholos) in Eastern Mediterranean contexts gave way to speculations on an early Aegean colonization. Yet not a single Eastern artifact has been found in Iberian soil with Chalcolithic dates and also it happens that Aegean tholoi are more recent than Iberian ones. Yet older types of tholos can be found in Cyprus and Syria, but used as homes, not tombs. The current interpretations are that either a connection existed but it was very diffuse and limited or that the tholos evolved separately in the two regions.

The new types of megaliths, anyhow, appear in SW, South and SE Iberia, in the context of the more developed and richer regions. There are also some examples in SE France, a region that kept close contact with the Iberian cultures during all the Chalcolithic period.



2.2. Trade:
    Probably related with this expansion of Megalithism also to other regions, specially all Atlantic Europe, foreign trade starts being noticeable. Amber is imported from Northern Europe, while ivory and ostrich products (egg-shells in the fossil record) come from Africa. This can be dated as soon as 3000 BCE as well.

In later phases of this period, specially during the bell-shaped beaker phenomenon (since 2200 BCE), trade and exchange will also be noticeable by the spread of products (pottery, caracteristic buttons, weapons) that are more strongly associated to the different regions.

2.3. Civilizations:
    In the Chalcolitic period villages and towns start appearing in many places. Since c. 2600 BCE two paralell but different centers appear neatly in the West and SE. The latter, centered in the city of Los Millares have been known since more than a century ago, when Louis Siret started excavating the site. As mentioned before the caracteristics of the city, with a large necropolis of tholoi cause many to speculate over an eastern colonization, what has been disproven later.

You can find more information (in Spanish) on Los Millares and the Almerian culture in the following site: http://usuarios.lycos.es/losmillares/.


Drawing of the walls of the city of Los Millares (from the above mentioned site)

Well preserved Millarense tholos (from the same source)

The other, maybe less spectacular but surely not less important, civilization was placed in the area around modern Lisbon. It's known as culture of Vila Nova de Sao Pedro (VNSP), from a minor fortified site where thousands of arrow points were found. Yet the the major city of that culture was Zambujal, near Torres Vedras, dominating the lesser sites of the Estremadura peninsula and nearby areas.

Other towns, many also fortified are found in southern Portugal and Spain. Less important towns and villages are found elsewhere too.


Map of VNSP and nearby areas

Some articles (in Portuguese) on Zambujal site are:

• O Calcol�tico da Estremadura e o Castro do Zambujal
• O modus vivendi do Castro do Zambujal

2.4. Presence of the Bell-Beaker:
    It must be said that the often found term Beaker People is quite confusing: to start with it is not clear that they were any people or nation. It rather seems a cultural, maybe commercial, phenomenon that, outside of its original Central European area, has little or no influence in the local cultures it settles in. For this reason is more rigorousl refered as Bell-Beaker phenomenon.

It seems that the Beaker phenomenon has its origins somewhere in Central Europe, most likely what is nowadays the Czec Republic, c. 2300 BCE. It soon expanded westward, not by conquest but rather by settlement as minority among other peoples, whose cultures remain unchanged in the most part. It is believed that the Beaker People were rich armed merchants, specially for their funerary remains, almost invariably including arrow flints, a copper knife, golden ornaments, typical bone buttons and the unavoidable bell-shaped beaker.


Overall extension of the Bell-Beaker phenomenon (from Wikipedia)

Early corded beakers, thought to come from Central Europe, arrive soon  to Iberia via the Rhone and the Atlantic Ocean. One of their main settlements is VNSP, which, one century after, c. 2100 BCE, will become the main European center of this phenomenon, with its caracteristic maritime or international style expanding to all the peninsula and southern France. This doesn't just affect to beaker pottery but also to other VNSP products as the Palmela flints and diferent types of buttons. Since c. 1900 BCE though the center goes back to Bohemia, while in Iberia one can see a decentralization of stiles: VNSP continues prducing its own new style (Palmela), while Los Millares has its own (Almerian style) and another non-urban center appears in the plateau (Ciempozuelos style).

Bell-beaker from Zambujal (VNSP) (source)


Another bell-beaker from an unspecified site (source)

Continues with the not less interesting Early and Middle Bronze Age below .



Edited by Maju

I used to work with two girls from CAdiz, they said that theirs was the oldest town in Europe.

3. Early and Middle Bronze Age:

3.1. El Argar:
    The most important phenomenon in Iberian Bronze age is the culture of El Argar, that replaces Los Millares in the SW region. This replacement happens c. 1800 BCE. El Argar is also a fortified city a little more north than its predecessor. The extension of its influence is nevertheless greater, including not just the area of Almeria but also that of Murcia. It is thought that it could well be a centralized state, due to the comparative importance of the capital city. Only other two settlements have somehow comparable dimensions, one in the north and another in the west of the Argaric region (they could be major provincial capitals maybe).

Initially, in the phase known as El Argar A (until c. 1500 BCE), the culture is very simmilar to that of Los Millares. Yet there is one major feature that diferentiates both cultures: Argarians had the technology of bronze. Another major diference is found in burial customs. Collective burial in megaliths is abandoned and substituted by individual burial. Both traits have probably a Mediterranean origin, where the same funerary transition to individual burials is found.

Nevertheless the Oriental influence is teuous and unclear: in the Broze Age again almost no Eastern artifacts are found in Iberia (see below).

The inmediate area of influence of the Argarian culture is larger than than that of Los Millares, stretching further north into the fringes of the Guadaquivir valley. But its political influx was surely much greater.

Since c. 1500, El Argar adopts Aegean burial style of pythoi (giant jars). At this point the culture is known as El Argar B.



3.2. Bronze of Levante:
    In the area that aproximately ocupies modern-day Valencian region, specially in the southern half, a less spectacular culture of smaller fortified villages appears now. They also cast bronze and they seem rather close culturally to El Argar.

3.3. SW Iberia:
    Southern Portugal, an area that showed a flourishing urbanization and social organization in the Chalcolithic, now appears with no habitation sites. Three successive horizons occupy the entire Bronze Age, only known through their individual burials, often accompanied by a bronze dagger. Some more spectacular burials are associated to this diffuse cultural area: these scarce monuments (probably the tombs of some leaders) are large stone open circles with two semicircles attached at their sides, in a shape that to some suggest a crab.

Further north, the culture of Vila Nova de Sao Pedro continues its existence as in the previous phase, bell-beaker and megalithism included, and never developes the technology of bronze.

3.4 The Plateau:
    For the first time the cattle-herding tribes of the central plateau get organized in a single culture, known as Cogotas I (Cogotas II belongs to the Iron Age and is Celtic). This culture surely practices transhumance as it has been done till very recent times.

3.5. The North West:
    North Western Iberia, the Gallaecia or the Romans, had been till this moment a very undeveloped region. Yet, the presence of strategic tin resources (copper was aboundant in all the peninsula) is probably the cause behind some flourishing in the Mid Bronze Age (1500-1300 BCE). The Montelavar group is caracterized specially by its bronze axes.

3.6. The Motillas:
    Since c. 1500, the desertic region of La Mancha is colonized by people with Bronze of Levante culture. Very few towns are created, all in the southern mountainous areas, but dozens of articial hills with fortifications on top, known as motillas, are built in all the territory.

One can only speculate why this happens. La Mancha is porbably the most ungrateful land of all Iberia and the colonization is clearly militar. It could well be a defensive effort by the Argarian state and their Levantine allies against incursions from the seminomadic tribes of the plateau but it could also have the intent of securing a land route to the North West, via Cogotas, in search of the valued tin.

Here we must stop to contemplate the relation between El Argar, hegemony of the SE and VNSP, probably still controlling the Atlantic routes from their strategic position. While we do find some cultural exchange between Los Millares and VNSP in the Chalcolitic era, we find nothing of the like when El Argar takes control of the SE in the Bronze Age. It may well be that a continuous conflict between the two powerful states was present during all or most of this period and that phenomena such as the disapearence of SW towns and the militar colonization of La Mancha are related to this cultural and political duality.

One thing is clear: when VNSP vanishes c. 1300, it was still the only culture of the peninsula not working with Bronze.

3.7. General issues:
    Agriculture boomed but maybe the most relevant note to point out is that trade relations also increased. The major partner was again Atlantic Europe (Britain and Western France) but trade with the Eastern Mediterranean seems to have also existed: in two Levantine sites with diferent chronologies glass beads that must have come from Egypt (XVIII dynasty) or Greece (Mycenean I) have been found. The Oriental influx anyhow is clear in the cultural influences in burial and houses, as well as in the very fact of the appearence of the bronze technology, independently of any continental input.

A mention must be made to Bronze Age weaponry, maybe the most characteristic finding of this period: daggers, axes and pikes are common but maybe the most spectacular are swords. Their greatest centers of ditribution (production) are El Argar cultural area and the NW.

Soon to come: Late Bronze and Iron Age. Indo-European invasions and colonial period included.



Edited by Maju

5. Iron Age and colonial period:

Iron technology arrives to Iberia through two routes: Indo-European (Celtic) Hallstatt culture (successor of Urnfields) and Phoenician colonization. While Phoenician traditions place the foundation of Gadir (C�diz) c. 1100 BCE, archeological findings in this location are not dated before the 8th century. In the 8th and 7th centuries also, Hallstattic influences arrive to local Celts (Urnfields), which will expand firmly westward. This trend will be reversed in the 6th century BCE, when, after the Greek fundation of Massalia (Marseilles), Iberian native culture will re-assimilate the NE, separating the Celts of Iberia from their continental relatives.

A major mistery in this period is the historically well documented existence of a city by the name of Tartessos or Tarshish, which has not yet been found. A rich Tartessian-orientalizing culture is well defined by archaeology but the famous city, capital of this area, has yet to be unearthed.

5.1. Iron Age Urnfields:
    In the last decades of the 8th century, Hallstatic influences arrive to the local Urnfields Celts of the NE. Maybe the most important one is the technology of Iron, including long swords. Social diferentiation increases and the importance of trade seems clear. Horsemanship seems on the rise and this may imply the developement of a cavalry elite.

In this late period, Urnfields extend to other nearby areas, showing a clear expansive trend. The scope of this limited expansion are the northern region of the Levante and the upper Ebro valley.

5.2. Phoenician colonization:
    As mentioned above, Phoenician historiography dates the foundation of Gadir, their oldest colony in 1110 BCE. Yet archaeology hasn't yet yielded any remains for dates previous to the 9th century. This discrepancy is believed to be caused by the fact that Gadir was in its first stages a rather modest settlement, only growing big later.

Apart of Gadir, a handful of other colonies were created in the southern coast. Malaca (M�laga), Sexi (Almu�ecar) and Abdera (Almer�a) being the most important ones. Yet Gadir, being near the mouth of the partly navigable Guadalquivir, at the proximity of the rich Tartessian culture and open to the Atlantic tin routes, would be the major city of Phoenicians of Iberia until the fundation of New Carthage (Cartagena) in 230 BCE.

The influence of Phoenician colonial culture and specially trade is very strong, specially in the south, growing in intensity as centuries pass by. Iron tech, potter's wheel, religious elements, the concept of writing are just some of the elements that Phoenician colonization (and, in lesser degree, Greek one) brought to Iberia. In exchange, Phoenicians obviously got what they wanted: lots of minerals and other natural riches to trade with and the control of the passage to the Atlantic Ocean.

5.3. The Tartessian-orientalizing culture:
    Probably already in the Late Bronze Age a large center was present in SW Spain and it's influence will grow in this period, virtually absorbing the SE and largely influencing the Levante and other areas.

Still, as I said above, the city of Tartessos still awaits to be found.


Map showing a possible location for Tartessos and the Ligustine Lagoon (now the marshes of the Guadalquivir), approximating classical descriptions (source). Other hypothesis would place it more westward, in the double estuary of Huelva. In any case the strategical location of Gadir (latinized as Gades in the map) appears clear.

Acording to some classical sources, Tartessos city was destroyed by Phoenicians at some point but this extreme is unclear.

What is clear is that an important native culture, influenced by Phoenicians but with strong personality, stretched through all southern Iberia. The habitat, badly known, is basically that of fortified towns and the culture is continuous of that of the Late Bronze. Internally burnished pottery is partly replaced by geometrically painted Carambolo style. The center of these two pottery styles is clearly located in Western Andalusia. Bovine cattle seems to grow in importance replaceing largely the predominant sheep and goat of the previous phases in the south.

The funerary customs adopt some innovations, most notably the torriform mausoleums (profusely decorated monoliths or columns), that stretch all the way through southern Iberia. Statues of women, such as the lady of Elx and the lady of Baeza, which may represent the deceased or maybe a divinity, ilustrate the richness of dress of the Ibero-Tartessian elites. Other elements are also present though it would take too long to expose them in depth.


Restored Tartessian funerary chariots from Huelva (source)

With the Orientalizing period the strategical routes that will shape Roman Iberia, the Silver and Herakleian routes appear very clearly. The first one crosses the west of the Peninsula from the Tartessian centers to the NW, the second follows the Guadalquivir following towards the NE close to the coast. Both routes expand Tartessian and colonial influence into the other regions of Iberia.

5.4. Celtic penetration:
    C. 700 BCE, the cattle herder culture of Cogotas I is transformed into Cogotas II. This implies some improvement in the quality of the pottery and the appearence of some Celtic elements as the torques. The culture is since then considered a Celtic one, though the hybridation with the native substrate is clear in that most elements show continuity.

This Celtic expansion does not stop in the plateau but rather extends further eastward. Lusitanians stabilish themselves in the NE of the territory that later would get their name rapidly replacing the western native culture of the externally burnished pottery. Celtic penetration is also clear in the NW, though it has been debated wether all tribes of this area were actually Celtic, cetizied or just native with influences. The penetration of Celtic culture in the northern mountainous strip is minimal and most likely Astures, Cantabri and other nations reported by Strabo and Plynius in the area remain fully pre-Indoeuropean, though the lack of their own written legacy has given way to multiple especulations.

5.5. Iberian contuinity:
    The Eastern and SE areas show a great deal of continuity, yet the external influences, from the late Urnfields but specially from Phoenician and Tartessian culture are large. Argaric culture finally disapears fused with its neighbours and Tartessian influence takes its place.

After the Phocean foundation of Massilia, in 600 BCE, and specially after the creation of a local outpost, Emporion, soon after, the NW is rapidly re-Iberized from the south. Most likely native substrate was never assimilated by the Celtic elites and it finds now richer and more familiar identity with their southern neighours. This process cut the Celts of Iberia from their continental counterparts, preventing that the late Celtic culture of La T�ne and the religious phenomenon of druidism affect the peninsular Celts.

5.6. Writing:
    It is in the Iron/Colonial Age when writing appears among Iberians. Despite its likely Phoenician origin Iberian scripts are very original, being semisysilabic and not pure alphabets.


Southern Iberian script (also called Tartessian)


Northern Iberian script (or simply Iberian)


Celtiberian script, a variation of the former (all scripts from Omniglot)

In a few cases, a variation of Ionian alphabet is also used. Despite the abundance of Tartessian and Iberian writings and being no major problem with their transcription, both languages or language families remain unclassified. While Iberian could have some very distant and unclear relation with Basco-Aquitanian, Tartessian is an absolute isolate that sounds to nothing known.


Map showing the reconstructed three major linguistic areas of the Late Iron Age and also some historical major tribes and the colonial settlements

This is the scenario that Carthage and Rome will find when they come to fight each other in the successive Punic Wars. The rest is history.



Edited by Maju

 

good posts

 

 

Edited by khalid bin walid