Prehistoric Portugal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|---|
| History of Portugal series |
|
| Topics |
|
| Timeline of Portuguese history |
This article describes the prehistory of Portugal from the appearance of the first human populations until the arrival of the Phoenicians in the Iberian Peninsula and the first recorded contacts with other European cultures. Portugal has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, first by Neanderthals and then by homo sapiens.
Contents |
[edit] Paleolithic
Around 200,000 BC, during the Paleolithic period the Neanderthal Man first entered the Iberian peninsula, and established the Mousterian culture around 70,000 BC.
In the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic the first large settlement of Europe by Modern Humans, Nomadic Hunter-gathereres came from the steppes of Central Asia, characterized by the M173 mutation in the Y chromosome, defining them as an Haplogroup R population. They reached the Iberian Peninsula around 30,000 BC.
When the last ice age reached its maximum extent, these modern humans took refuge in Southern Europe, namely in Iberia, and in the steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia coexisting with Neanderthal men. Between 35,000 BC and 33,000 BC the Neanderthal Châtelperronian and Modern Human Aurignacian cultures entered the Iberian Peninsula.
Around 30,000 BC a new wave of Modern Humans made way into the Iberian peninsula, coming from Southern France. Here, this genetically homogenous population (characterized by the M173 mutation in the Y chromosome), developed the M343 mutation, giving rise to the R1b Haplogroup, still dominant in modern Portuguese and Spanish populations. While Gravettian culture was on its rise, Neanderthal Man became extinct; their last refuge was today's Portugal around 28,000 BC.
Between about 20,000 BC and 15,000 BC the Solutrean and Magdalenian cultural periods flourished in Europe. The Pre-historic art in the Valley of Foz Côa (near moder Vila Nova de Foz Côa, in Portugal) is one example of Solutrean cultural period.
[edit] Mesolithic
Around 10,000 BC an interstadial deglaciation called the Allerød Oscillation occurred, weakening the rigorous conditions of the last ice age. This also ended the Upper Palaeolithic period, beginning the Mesolithic. The populations sheltered in Iberia, descendants of the Cro-Magnon, given the deglaciation, migrated and recolonized all of Western Europe, thus spreading the R1b Haplogroup populations (still dominat, in variant degrees, from Iberia to Scandinavia). During this time, the Azilian culture in Southern France and Northern Iberia (to the mouth of the Douro river) is noteworthy, as well as the Muge Culture in the Tagus valley.
[edit] Neolithic
In the 5th millennium BC, with the beginning of the Neolithic in the Iberian peninsula started an autochthonous development of Agriculture. Also the Megalithic European culture spread to most of Europe and had one of its oldest and main centres in the territory of modern Portugal[1].
Meanwhile, the nomadic Hunter-gatherers of the R Haplogroup (characterized by the M173 mutation in the Y chromosome) that had taken refuge during the Last Ice Age in the Steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia (and had developed the M17 mutation, originating the R1a Haplogroup), gave rise to the Proto-Indo-European cultures (predecessors of the Indo-European population and their languages), such as the Kurgan culture.
In the 3rd millennium BC the Chalcolithic culture of Vila Nova, a Megalithic European culture around the area of modern Lisbon, appeared. In the same period the Beaker culture spread to most of Western Europe (Portugal, Spain, France [excluding the central massif], Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and Germany from the Elbe valley west, with an extension along the upper Danube into the Vienna basin in Austria, with Mediterranean outposts on Sardinia and Sicily).
[edit] Bronze Age
During the 1st millennium BC a first wave of Indo-European migrations, of the Urnfield culture (Proto-Celts), went to Iberia. This triggered the beginning of the Bronze culture (Indo-European) in the Northwest of the peninsula (modern Galicia and northern Portugal), that maintained commercial relations with Brittany and the British Isles. It was during this period that the Castro Village culture emerged in this Iberian area.
During the next centuries the Bronze culture arrived in Portugal Estremadura (not Indo-European) and Beira Alta (not Indo-European but influenced by it). Approaching the Iron Age, the Tartessian society in the territory of modern Andalusia, started to emerge.
