Castro culture (Galician: cultura castrexa, Portuguese: cultura castreja, Spanish: cultura castreña) is the archaeological term for naming the Celtic archaeological culture of the northwestern regions of the Iberian Peninsula (roughly present-day northern Portugal, together with Galicia, Asturias, and northern and western León in Spain) from the end of the Bronze Age (c. 9th century BC) until it was subsumed in local Roman culture. The most notable characteristics of this culture are, first, its walled oppida and hill forts, known locally as castros, from Latin castrum "castle", and second, the absence of visible burial practices, while there were frequent depositions of prestige items and goods, swords and other metallic riches, in rocky outcrops, rivers and other aquatic contexts, since the Atlantic Bronze Age.[1][2] This cultural area extended east to the Cares river, and south beyond the Douro.
The area of Ave Valley was the core region of this culture, with a large number of small Castro settlements, but also including larger and later oppida, the cividades (from Latin civitas, city), some known as citânias by archaeologists, due to their city-like structure: Cividade de Bagunte, Cividade de Terroso, Citânia de Briteiros, and Citânia de Sanfins.[3]
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The Castro culture emerged during the first two centuries of the first millennium BCE, in the region extending from the Douro river up to the Minho, but soon expanding north along the coast, and east following the river valleys,[4] reaching the mountain ranges which separate the Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula from the central plateau or meseta. It was the result of the autonomous evolution of Atlantic Bronze Age communities, after the local collapse of the long range Atlantic network of interchange of prestige items.[5]
From the Mondego river up to the Minho river, along the coastal areas of northern Portugal, during the last two centuries of the second millennium BCE a series of settlements were established in high, well communicated places,[6] irradiating from a core area north of the Mondego, and usually specializing themselves in the production of Atlantic Bronze Age metallurgy: cauldrons, knives, bronze vases, roasting spits, flesh-hooks, swords, axes and jewelry, related to a noble elite who celebrated ritual banquets and who participated in an extensive network of interchange of prestige items, from the Mediterranean and up to the British Isles. These villages were closely related to the open settlements which characterized the first Bronze Age, frequently established near the valleys and the richer agricultural lands.
From the beginning of the first millennium, the network appears to collapse, probably because the Iron Age had outdated the Atlantic tin and bronze products in the Mediterranean region, and the large scale production of metallic items was reduced to the elaboration of axes and tools, which are still found buried in very large quantities all along the European Atlantic coast.
During the transition of the Bronze to the Iron Age, from the Douro in Portugal and up along the coasts of Galicia[7] until the central regions of Asturias, the settlement in artificially fortified places substituted the old open settlement model.[8] These early hill-forts were small (1 ha at most), being situated in hills, peninsulas or another naturally defended places, usually endued with long range visibility. Its artificial defenses were initially just composed of earthen walls, battlements and ditches, which enclosed an inner habitable space. This space was mostly void, non urbanized, used for communal activities, and it comprised just some few circular, oblong, or rounded squared huts, of some 5 to 15 meters (16–49 ft) of largest dimension,[9] built with wood, vegetable materials and mud, sometimes reinforced with stony low walls. The major inner feature of these multi-functional undivided cabins were the hearth, circular or quadrangular, and which conditioned the uses of the other spaces of the room.
In essence, the main characteristic of this formative period is the assumption by the community of a larger authority at the expenses of the elites, reflected in the minor importance of the prestige items production, while the collective inverted important resources and labor in the communal spaces and defenses.[10]
Since the beginning of the 6th century BCE the Castro culture experimented an inner expansion: hundreds of new hill-forts are founded, while some older small ones are abandoned for new emplacements.[11] These new settlements are founded near the valleys, close to the richest agricultural lands, and they are generally protected by several lines of defence, composed of ramparts, ditches, and sound stony walls, probably built not only as a defensive apparatus but also as a feature which could confer prestige to the community. Sometimes, human remains have been found in cists or under the walls, implying some kind of foundational protective ritual.[12]
Not only did the number of settlements grown during this period, but also their size and their internal density. First, the old familiar huts were frequently substituted by familiar groups of housings, composed generally of one or more huts with heath, plus round granaries, and elongated or square sheds and workshops. At the same time, these houses and groups tended to occupy most of the internal room of the hill-forts, reducing the communitarian open spaces, which in turn would had been substituted by other facilities such as saunas,[13] communitarian halls, and shared forges. Although most of the communities of this period had mostly self-sufficient isolated economies, one important change was the reactivation of the commerce with the Mediterranean by the now independent Carthage, a Western Mediterranean thriving power. Their merchants brought a number of Mediterranean imports (wine, glass, pottery...) commerced through a series of emporia, commercial post which sometimes included temples and other installations. At the same time, the archaeological register shows, trough the finding of large quantities of fibulae, pins, pincers for hair extraction, pendants, earrings, torcs, bracelets, and other personal objects, the on-growing importance of the individual and his or her physical aspect. While the communities of the Castro Iron Age shows themselves as very egalitarian, these findings imply the development of a privileged class with superior access to prestige items.
From the 2nd century BCE, specially in the south, some of the hill-forts turned into semi-urban fortified towns, oppida;[14] their remains are locally known as cividades or “cidades”, cities, with populations of some few thousand inhabitants,[15] such as Cividade de Bagunte (50 ha), Sanfins (15 ha), Briteiros (24 ha), San Cibrao de Lás (20 ha), or Santa Tegra (15 ha); some of them were even larger than the cities, Bracara Augusti and Lucus Augusti, that Rome established a century later. These hill-forts were characterized by their size and by urban features such as paved streets equipped with channels for stormwater runoff, reservoirs of potable water, and evidence of urban planning. Many of them also presented an inner and upper walled space, relatively large and scarcely urbanized, called acrópole by local scholars. These oppida were generally surrounded by concentric ditches and stone walls, up to five in Briteiros, sometimes reinforced with towers. Gates to these oppida become monumental, and frequently have sculptures of warriors.
The oppida's dwelling areas are frequently externally walled, and kitchens, sheds, granaries, workshops and living rooms are ordered around an inner paved yard, sometimes equipped with fountains, drains and reservoirs.
Cividade de Bagunte was one of the largest cities with 50 hectares. The cities are surrounded by a number of smaller castros, some of which may have been defensive outposts of cities, such as Castro de Laundos, that was probably an outpost of Cividade de Terroso. A cividade may also have been the origin of Bracara Augusta, although there are no archaeological findings apart from an ancient parish name and pre-Roman baths. Bracara Augusta later became the capital of the Roman province of Gallaecia, which encompassed all the lands once participant of the Castro culture.
The first meeting of Rome with the inhabitants of the castros and cividades was during the Punic wars, when Carthaginians hired local mercenaries for fighting Rome in the Mediterranean and into Italy. Later on, Gallaecians backed Lusitanians fighting Romans, and as a result the Roman general Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus led a successful punishment expedition into the North in 137 BCE; the victory he celebrated in Rome granted him the title Callaicus (“Galician”). During the next century Gallaecia was still theatre of operation for Perpenna (73 BCE), Julius Caesar (61 BCE) and the generals of Augustus (29-19 BCE).[16] But only after the Romans defeated the Asturians and Cantabrians in 19 BCE is evident—thought inscriptions, numismatic and other archaeological findings—the submission of the local powers to Rome.
While the 1st century BCE represents an era of expansion and maturity for the Castro Culture, under Roman influence and with the local economy apparently powered more than hindered by Roman commerce and wars, during the next century the control of Roma became political and military, and for the first time in more than a millennium new unfortified settlements were established in the plains and valleys, at the same time that numerous hill-forts and oppida were abandoned.[17] The culture went through somewhat of a transformation, as a result of the Roman conquest and formation of the Roman province of Gallaecia in the heart of the Castro cultural area; by the 2nd century CE most hill-forts and oppida had been abandoned or reused as sanctuaries or worshipping places, but some others kept being occupied up to the 5th century,[18] when the Germanic Suevi established themselves in Gallaecia.
As stated, while Bronze Age economy was based on the exploitation and exportation of mineral local resources, tin and cooper, and on mass production and long range distribution of prestige items, Iron Age economy was based on a economy of necessity goods,[19] as most items and productions were obtained in situ, or interchanged thought short range commerce. Anyway, in the southern coastal areas the presence of Mediterranean merchants from the 6th century BCE onward, would had occasioned an increase in social inequality, bringing a large number of importations (fine pottery, fibulae, wine, glass...) and technological innovations (as round granite millstones) which would had melted with the Atlantic local traditions. Finally, military Roman presence in the South and East of the Iberian peninsula since the 2nd century BCE would had reinforced the role of the autochthonous warrior elites, with superior access to local prestige items and importations.
Pollen analyses confirms the Iron Age as a period of intense deforestation in Galicia and Northern Portugal, with meadows and fields expanding at the expense of woodland. Using three main type of tools, ploughs, sickles and hoes, together with axes for woodcutting, the Castro inhabitants grew a number of cereals: (wheat, millet, possibly also rye) for baking bread, as well as oats, and barley which they also used for beer production.[20] They also grew beans, peas and cabbage, and flax for fabric and clothes production; other vegetables where collected: nettle, watercress. Large quantities of acorns have been found hoarded in most hill-forts, as they were used for bread production once toasted and crushed in granite stone mills.[21]
The second pillar of local economy was animal husbandry. Gallaecians breed cattle for meat, milk and butter production; they also used oxen for dragging carts and ploughs,[22] while horses were used mainly for human transportation. They also breed sheep and goats, for meat and wool, and pigs for meat. Wild animals like deer or boars were frequently chased. In coastal areas, fishing and collecting shellfish were important activities: Strabo wrote that the people of northern Iberia used boats made of leather, probably similar to Irish currachs and Welsh coracles, for local navigation.[23] Archaeologists have found hooks and weights for nets, as well as open seas fish remains, confirming inhabitants of the coastal areas as fishermen.[24]
Mining was an integral part of the culture, and it attracted Mediterranean merchants, first Phoenicians, later Carthaginians and Romans. Gold, iron, copper, tin, and lead were the most common ores mined. Castro metallurgy refined the metals from ores and cast them to make various tools.
During the initial centuries of the first millennium BCE bronze was still the most used metal, although iron was progressively introduced. Main products include tools (sickles, hoes, ploughs, axes), domestic items (knives and cauldrons), and weapons (antenna swords, spearheads). During the initial Iron Age the local artisans stopped producing some of the most characteristic Bronze Age items[25] such as carp tongue, leaf shaped and rapier swords, double ringed axes, breastplates and most jewellery. At the same time new type of items, such as fibulae and pendant type earrings—initially based in Mediterranean models—were produced, while some other types were reactivated, mostly based on Central and Atlantic European models and under direct or indirect Mediterranean influences:[26] gold torcs (some 120 ones are known) with large, void terminals containing little stones, which allowed them to be also used as rattles; antenna-hilted swords and knives; Montefortino helmets with local decoration; and sacrificial or votive axes depicting themselves complex sacrificial scenes (similar to classical suovetaurilia), with torcs, cauldrons, weapons, animals of diverse species, and string-like motives.[27]
Decorative motifs include rosettes, triskelions, swastikas, spirals, interlaces, as well as palm tree, herring bone and string motives, many of which were still carved in Romanesque churches, and are still used up to day in local folk art and traditional items in Galicia, Portugal and northern Spain.[28][29] These same motifs were also extensively used in stone decoration. Castro sculpture also reveal that locals carved these figures in wood items, such as chairs, and weaved them into their clothes.
While the use of stone for constructions is an old tradition in the Castro culture, dating from the first centuries of the first millennium BCE, sculpture only became usual from the 2nd century BCE, specially in the southern half of the territory, associated to the oppida. Five main types are produced, all of them in granite stone:[29]
Pottery was produced in the region, although wealthier people frequently imported Mediterranean products.
At the beginning of our era more than 700,000 people were living in the main area of the Castro culture, in hill forts and oppida.[33] Northern Gallaeci (Lucenses) were divided into 16 populi or tribes: Lemavi, Albiones, Cibarci, Egivarri Namarini, Adovi, Arroni, Arrotrebae, Celtici Neri, Celtici Supertamarci, Copori, Celtici Praestamarci, Cileni, Seurri, Baedui. Astures were divided in Augustani and Transmontani, comprising 22 populi: Gigurri, Tiburi, Susarri, Paesici, Lancienses, Zoelae, among others. Southern Gallaecians (Bracareses), comprising the area of the oppida, were composed of 24 civitates: Helleni, Grovi, Leuni, Surbi, Bracari, Interamnici, Limici, Querquerni, Coelerni, Tamagani, Bibali, Callaeci, Equasei, Caladuni...
Each populi or civitas was composed of a number of castella, each one comprehending one ore more hill-forts or oppida, by themselves an autonomous political chiefdom, probably under the direction of a chief and a senate. Under Roman influence the tribes or populi apparently ascended to a major role, at the expense of the minor entities.[34] From the beginning of our era a few Latin inscriptions are known where some individuals declare themselves princeps or ambimogidus of a certain populi or civitas.
The name of some of the castles and oppida are known through the declaration of origin of persons mentioned in epitaphs and votive inscriptions[35] (BERISAMO, LETIOBRI, ERCORIOBRI, LOUCIOCELO, OLCA, SERANTE, TALABRIGA, AVILIOBRIS, MEIDUNIO, DURBEDE...), through the epithets of local Gods in votive altars (ALANIOBRICA, VERUBRICO, AETIOBRIGO, VIRIOCELENSE...), and the testimony of classic authors and geographers (Adrobrica, Ebora, Abobrica, Nemetobriga, Brigantium, Olina, Caladunum, Tyde, Glandomirum, Ocelum...). Some more names can be inferred from modern place names, as those containing an evolution of the Celtic element brigs meaning "hill", characteristically ligated to old hill-forts[36][37] (Tragove, O Grove < Ogrobre, Canzobre < Caranzobre, Cortobe, Lestrove, Landrove, Iñobre, Maiobre...) Approximately half the pre-Latin toponyms of Roman Gallaecia were Celtic, while the rest were either non Celtic western Indo-European, or mixed toponyms containing Celtic and non-Celtic elements.[38]
The religious pantheon was extensive, with local (Cossue, Bandue, Navia and other deities) and pan-Celtic (Lugus, Matres, Suleis...) deities. Hundreds of Latin inscriptions have survived with dedications to gods and goddesses. Archaeological finds such as ceremonial axes decorated with animal sacrificial scenes, together with the severed head sculptures and the testimonies of classical authors, confirms the ceremonial sacrifice of animals, probably including humans, as among Lusitanians and Gauls. Funerary rites are mostly unknown except at Cividade de Terroso, where cremation was practiced.