European Kingdoms

Early Iberia (Neolithic & Chalcolithic)

Neolithic & Late Mesolithic 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).

Subsequent cultural complexity appeared and increased as human populations increased. What had been a single human culture across Europe eventually divided in two which - at least at first - can be equated to Northern Europe and Southern Europe. Within the latter zone was Early Iberia, with 'Iberia' being the ancient name for this sun-drenched south-western peninsula.

The first modern humans arrived here by about 24,000 BC. There may have been earlier arrivals, but Iberia experienced the long-lived Azilian culture shortly after that first occupation, and then the more highly-regionalised Asturian as part of the Iberian Mesolithic which begins around 10,000 BC.

The Iberian Neolithic was slow to arrive, doing so as part of the Cardial Pottery culture by 5700 BC. By this time Neolithic Farmers had been in Europe for over a millennium. Its arrival in Iberia introduced a profound transformation as it succeeded the region's relatively low-key Mesolithic populations - albeit not all at once.

These new Anatolian-farmer-derived settlers of the Near East Neolithic introduced agriculture, animal husbandry, pottery, and permanent villages, while eventually creating the monumental megalithic architecture which defines Western Europe. They also gradually introduced the Mesolithic population to the benefits of this new way of life so that Neolithic uptake gradually spread across the peninsula.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, 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), from The Magdalenian Settlement of Europe, Quaternary International Volumes 272-273 (2012), and from External Links: The Genetic History of Ice Age Europe (Nature 2016), and Dietary Change from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages in the Iron Gates, C Bonsall (Lead Author, Cambridge University Press, 18 July 2016), and Iberian Neolithic: Farmers of the Atlantic Edge (DNA Genics).)