Early Iberian Cultures

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. For well over a century, archaeological cultures have remained the framework for global prehistory. The earliest cultures which emerge from Africa and the Near East are perhaps the easiest to catalogue, right up until human expansion reaches the Americas. The task of cataloguing that vast range of human cultures is covered in the related feature (see link, right).

Iberia is the ancient name for the sun-drenched south-western peninsula of Europe. It 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 can first be charted through the story of Homo Neanderthalis - the Neanderthals.

The early stages of this species living in Europe are still being pinned down (see feature link), with previously Homo Heidelbergensis remains currently being re-evaluated and sometimes reclassified as Neanderthals. A population seems to have been in place by about 600,000 BC though, with its final appearance being on Gibraltar around 24,000 BC.

Modern Europeans in the form of Homo sapiens first appeared in the Balkans around 47,000 BC, largely through the transitional Bohunician culture. The Magdalenian culture of circa 17,000 to 12,000 BC was the last major pan-European expression of early human spread. Once the most recent ice age had retreated, human cultures became increasingly regionalised, initially divided here between Northern Europe and Southern Europe.

The first modern humans arrived in Iberia by about 24,000 BC, immediately preceding the start of the Solutrean culture. There may have been earlier arrivals but evidence is still being assessed before any definitive statement can be made.

More specific occupation zones for the peninsula's regions is also still somewhat open to debate. Conditions on the southern side of the Pyrenees were harsh at the time, away from the coastal regions, but older theories which held this as a reason to count against a human presence have now been discounted.

Iberia experienced the long-lived Azilian culture shortly after that first occupation by modern humans, and then the more highly-regionalised Asturian. The Iberian Mesolithic begins around 10,000 BC as indigenous hunter-gatherer groups adapted their lifestyles to a warming climate by adopting microlithic tools and focusing heavily on coastal resources.

The Iberian Neolithic was slow to arrive (as part of the Cardial Pottery culture by 5700 BC, by which time Neolithic Farmers had been in Europe for over a millennium). This experienced some difficulties towards the end of the fourth millennium BC, with the newly-arrived Iberian Chalcolithic (Copper Age) gradually becoming dominant across the peninsula from about 3200 BC having been foreshadowed by the Campaniform Chalcolithic.

However, it was the native Bell Beaker horizon at the start of the Iberian Bronze Age which really put it on the archaeological map as far as modern cultural development was concerned. The people of this horizon are the likely ancestors of the pre-Carthaginian tribal peoples of Iberia, especially of the Turdetani, possibly the Iberian tribes such as the Edetani, and possibly also the Aquitani to the north.

It was also this period which saw the first peopling of the Early Balearic Islands, and which led into the Iberian Iron Age of the first millennium BC. This in turn generated the related Castro culture in the north and Tartessian culture in the south.

European Kingdoms

Early Cultures

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