European Kingdoms

Cogotas II Culture (Iron Age) (Iberia)
c.1000 - 61 BC

First Millennium BC/AD Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. The task of cataloguing the vast range of human cultures which emerged from Africa and the Near East right up until human expansion reached the Americas is covered in the related feature (see link, right).

Early Iberia formed the south-western peninsula of Europe and comprises the modern countries of Portugal and Spain, plus the principality of Andorra and the British crown colony of Gibraltar. The peninsula's role in human development played a notable role in the first millennium BC, even before the coming of imperial ambitions which reached its southern and eastern shores.

The Cogotas II culture in Iberia was the archaeological Iberian Iron Age expression of the arrival and settlement of the Vettones tribal grouping. The fortified type site for this culture is Las Cogotas in the municipality of Cardeñosa in Spain's province of Ávila. To the north it was bordered by the Castro culture, while its southernmost region was eventually incorporated into the Tartessian culture.

Located on a hill, the site has been explored in detail by archaeologists, with the result that the stratigraphic sequence has been divided into two broad periods with a hiatus in between them. The oldest levels (or deepest) are typical of the late Bronze Age, forming Cogotas I, while the youngest (or shallowest) are typical of the Cogotas II.

Investigations into the Las Cogotas site have made it possible to build a more accurate picture of life in the peninsula prior to the Roman invasion. It was excavated by Juan Cabré in the 1920s and, as mentioned, is the main reference for the Vettones. They inhabited an extensive area which covered the modern provinces of Ávila and Salamanca and part of Toledo, Zamora, Cáceres, and Los Tras-os-Montes in Portugal.

Their arrival saw them dominate indigenous groups and shortly afterwards generate their own immigrant replacement culture in the same location as the previous Cogotas culture. This culture is also known as the 'Culture of the Verracos', or 'verracos de piedra' in Spanish. The name comes from crude granite sculptures which represent the bulls, pigs, and wild boars which still inhabit the region.

Archaeological finds are constantly being made, and archaeological cultures are frequently being updated with new information. Get in touch here if this page also requires updating.

(Information by Trish Wilson & Peter Kessler, with additional information by Edward Dawson, from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia, Gonzalo Aranda Jiménez, Sandra Montón-Subías, & Margarita Sánchez Romero (Routledge, 2019), from Atlantic Seaways, Barry Cunliffe, from Iberia, the Atlantic Bronze Age and the Mediterranean, Brendan O'Connor, from Bronze Age Iberia, Vicente Lull, Rafael Mico, Cristina Rihuete Herrada, & Roberto Risch, from Contacto cultural entre el Mediterráneo y el Atlántico (siglos XII-VIII ane), S Celestino, N Rafel, & X-L Armada (Eds, Consejo superior de Investigaciones Cientificas Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma, in Spanish), from Vida y muerte de una espada atlántica del Bronce Final en Europa: Reconstrucción de los procesos de fabricación, uso y destrucción, Bénédicte Quilliec (in Spanish), from Les ors de l'Europe atlantique à l'âge du bronze, Barbara Regine Armbruster (in French), and from External Links: Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (in Spanish), and Celtiberia.net (in Spanish), and Lista de pueblos prerromanos de Iberia (in Spanish, Hispanoteca.eu), and Euskomedia (in Spanish).)

c.1000 BC

The Iberian Bronze Age culture which is known as Cogotas I has already been ended by a growing influx of Indo-European tribes. These no doubt include proto-Italic-speakers who are already becoming established, but now Urnfield proto-Celts are joining them.

A double pit burial, comprising the remains of a young woman, with the feet absent (the central burial in this photo), and the partial remains of an adolescent (lower in the photo), from Cerro de la Cabeza (Avila), with the female wearing two bronze bracelets (to the right of the remains), and with the ensemble being a one-off instance of personal furnishings within a late Cogotas I mortuary context

These groups generally occupy areas of central and western Iberia, forming new cultural expressions on the ruins of the older ones. One of these involves a grouping which will later become the Vettones. Following a short hiatus at Los Cogotas they now form the Cogotas II culture.

More recently there has been a tendency to identify such early arrivals as being more broadly Indo-European or proto-Celtic rather than actual Celts, and argue for a process of infiltration over an extended period, from around 1000 to 300 BC, rather than the idea of invasions which had previously been favoured.

The first arrivals appear to establish themselves in Catalonia, having probably entered via the eastern passages of the Pyrenees. Later groups (more readily identifiable as Celtic) venture west through the Pyrenees to occupy the northern coast of the peninsula, and south beyond the Ebro and Duero basins as far as the Tagus valley.

South-western Iberia in the middle of the first millennium BC contained a rich, technologically-advanced civilisation in the form of the Tartessian culture (click or tap on map to view full sized)

It could be the strong Iberian presence in the east which prevents these proto-Celts from continuing down the Mediterranean coast to enter the Levantine Bronze or Post-Argaric regions.

c.800 - 700 BC

Radiocarbon dates for the earliest Celtic arrivals of the Hallstatt culture in the south-western Iberian peninsula put this around 800 BC. This is at Segovia just to the north of Elvas in Portugal, with them already having passed through Cogotas II territory which they strengthen with their presence. The next oldest dates are about 700 BC at Faro, well within the South-Western Iberian Bronze.

Within the broader South-Western Iberian Bronze is this Ferradeira horizon pit grave at Herdade do Álamo, and its location at the potential entrance to a Chalcolithic ditched enclosure

c.500 - 400 BC

This period witnesses a profound change in the Iberian peninsula's interior. The implementation of new forms of agricultural technology include the process of deforestation, and converting cleared areas into pasture and cultivated fields. This results in settlements becoming larger and more heavily occupied thanks to population figures improving.

Archaeology at the Las Cogotas and El Raso sites shows that the Vettones are included in this process, growing cereal crops and maintaining herds of pigs and cattle. Additionally they also harvest wild fruits and hunt wild boar and deer.

Increased production and population generates increased wealth which in turn improves and expands exchange networks and regional contacts. Some hostile pressure may emerge though, as the structure of settlements changes.

The Las Cogotas site was excavated by Juan Cabré in the 1920s, with it having served as the type site for the Cogotas I culture, and then as the main reference point for the Vettones-driven Cogotas II culture

They generally become larger, as stated, but also better defended, with walls, towers, and moats, becoming the fortified settlements of the north which form part of the Castro culture. The expanding Tartessian culture to the south envelops part of Vettones territory.

221 BC

Hannibal assumes command in Carthage and spends two years consolidating its conquest of Iberia south of the Ebro. Rome perceives this as a threat, triggering the Second Punic War, and triggering a period of Roman Conquest in Iberia.

The Iberian peninsula prior to the Carthaginian invasion and partial conquest was a melange of different tribal influences (click or tap on map to view full sized)