European Kingdoms

Early Iberia (Bronze Age)

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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 feature link, right).

Iberia is the largely 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 has experienced a colourful history which is filled with conquest and re-conquest, and centuries of struggle.

Prior to the advent of the Iron Age in Iberia, the peninsula experienced a sequence of Early Cultures which culminated with the Iberian Bronze Age. Starting from about 24,000 BC, these serve to link the first appearance of anatomically modern humans to the beginnings of recorded history in the first millennium BC.

That early arrival took place immediately preceding the start of the Solutrean culture. 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.

The three thousand year-old Iberian Neolithic experienced some difficulties towards the end of the fourth millennium BC, seemingly part of a climate-related switch which also ended Sumer's 'Uruk IV' period. In Sumer and Iberia respectively the subsequent Jemdet Nasr and Chalcolithic (Copper Age) briefly dominated. Then the former launched into its Bronze Age Post-Diluvian 'Early Dynastic' period while the latter began its own developmental Iberian Bronze Age around 2800 BC.

That also reached Early Balearic Islands, with the Bell Beaker and then the Argaric largely being the dominant cultures across the region, albeit with many smaller regional cultures to forge their own way while taking on influences. The Bronze Age eased into the Iberian Iron Age at the start of the first millennium BC.

(Information by Peter Kessler and Trish Wilson, with additional information from A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry, David K Faux, from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), and from External Links: Mesolithic Culture of Europe (PDF, Vidya Mitra Integrated E-Content Portal), and The Mesolithic of Iberia (Encyclopaedia.com), and First modern human settlement recorded in the Iberian hinterland (Scientific Reports), and Celtiberia.net (in Spanish), and Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (in Spanish), and A misty history of Roman Portugal (The Portugal News), and Euskomedia (in Spanish).)