Chapter Six: The New City
Part Fifteen: The Peoples of Iberia
Neanderthals first inhabited the Iberian Peninsula during the last Ice Age. It is thought to be the last holdout of the species, and finally they fell into oblivion and extinction around 30,000 years ago. Their extinction coincided with the arrival of modern man into Europe, and after approximately ten thousand years of competition, the Neanderthals died out. On average, people of European descent possess about 8% Neanderthal DNA, inherited through the cross breeding of the species.
Modern man, thus, has been present in Iberia for about 33,000 years, perhaps a little less. They withstood the Last Glacial Maximum 26,000 years ago, Iberia, Italia, and the Balkans were the only strips of Europe not covered in ice for seven thousand years. The majority of the genetic ancestors of the peoples who populate Iberia were present, perhaps, by the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. The Ice Age ended with a bang, rather than a whimper, with the Younger Dryas Event around 10,000 B.E., which was the last major glacial upsurge, and lasted a little more than a thousand years. The Younger Dryas Event is thought to have been a contributing factor to the birth of agriculture in the Levant and Mesopotamia.
The Mesolithic period (10,000- 6000 B.E.) was marked by rising sea levels, the birth of agriculture in the Middle East, and demographic shifts with the retreat of the ice caps. The ancestors of the Vascones were certainly present in Iberia by this time, in association with the Azilian Culture of Northern Iberia and Southern Gaul.
The Neolithic Revolution occurred around 6000 B.E., approximately when agriculture became a widely adopted phenomenon. Larger settlements began to take shape in the Middle East in places like Jericho. From the Middle-Eastern Agricultural Package, Europeans began to develop farming, although later than in the Middle East. Not until 5000 B.E. did Iberia see its first farmers, a group of agriculturalists from North Africa who brought with them legumes and cereals. The domestication of olives occurred around this time. It is unknown if livestock was kept at this time, but it is possible that pigs and rabbits were kept.
The Chalcolithic or Copper Age saw the birth of the first Iberian civilization with trade networks stretching as far as the Baltic. Metallurgy and the smelting of Copper began in Iberia around 3000 B.E., which coincided with the rise and spread of Megalithic culture in Iberia and Atlantic Europe in general. By 2600 B.E. urban centers began to pop up in Southern Iberia, and can be considered civilizations, though illiterate.
The Bronze Age began in Iberia around 1800 B.E., much later than most places in Europe who appear to have possessed Bronze Age technology as early as two thousand years previous. In South West Iberia, around the area of where Baria and New Carthage later stood, an indigenous civilization rose with large fortified cities, and exported Bronze products to their neighbors. They began to adopt the Eastern Mediterranean custom of burying their dead in pithoi, large urn like containers. This could be, perhaps, a prelude to the Orientalization period of Western Europe. Northwestern Kalikia [1] became the local center for mining tin, a vital mineral to the production of bronze. In the Late Bronze Age of Iberia (1300-800), the civilization of Southwest Iberia appears to have declined, and the ancestors of the Tartessos civilization started to appear. Proto-Celtic tribes in association with the Urnfield Culture arrived in the North, conquering the Mediterranean coastline North of the Ebro. These may have been the ancestors of the Lusitani, or Lusis, who would later migrate southwest to their Iron Age location. They are thought to have been the first Indo-European culture to penetrate the landscape.
The Iron Age began in Iberia around 800 B.E. when early Celtic tribes moved into the peninsula from Central Europe, establishing a horse riding elite. They migrated and settled the plateau, northern coastlines, and western coasts. Already, by 600 B.E. the Celtic groups of Iberia began to form into five distinct regions and local fulcrums of power which correlated approximately to the Celtiberians of Numantia and Burgos, the Vaccae to their west, the Lusitani of south-central Iberia, the Vettones, cattle-herders of central Iberia, and the Kalikians of Northwestern Iberia, who maintained strong trade ties with the British Isles and other Atlantic cultures.
After 600 B.E., however, the Iberian of the south appeared to re-conquer the Ebro region, effectively cutting off the Celtic tribes of Iberia. This meant that the Celtic groups there would retain Q-Celtic languages (as opposed to the P-Celtic languages of Britain, Gaul, Italia, and Central Europe), and would not develop a Druidic tradition.
The Iron Age also saw the first oriental colonies that would shape the history of Iberia appear. Phoenicians began trading with Iberians as early as the 10th century B.E., and by 800 B.E. (at the latest) had founded the city of Gadir, the oldest city in Western Europe still around. Gadir was originally built as a trading outpost on an island nearby Tartessos to facilitate trade with the rich culture there. Phoenicians from Tyre continued to colonize the Mediterranean coastline of Iberia, founding cities like Malaka. The Phoenicians are believed to have introduced iron to Southern Iberia, as well as the potter’s wheel and olive oil and wine. They also introduced writing to Iberia, which the Iberians gave religious connotations and helped quicken urban development.
In the 6th century, Phoenician colonization of Iberia was succeeded by Carthage, originally a Phoenician colony itself. Carthage, being located in North Africa, was much closer to Iberia than Tyre, and so was able to have a firmer hand in the control and hegemony of Phoenician colonies there. Greeks from Massalia also began to colonize the Iberian coastline, establishing cities like Rhode and Emporion.
The influences of these colonies from the east were vast, and introduced new technologies and cultural elements to Iberia. Nowhere else is this more evident than Tartessos. Tartessian culture could, perhaps, be equated to the Rasna culture of Italia: a native culture that adopted aspects of Greek and Phoenician culture and technology, became dominant in their respective region, ornate burials of the elite, the adoptions of writing, and a sudden and swift decline.
This decline, like that of the Rasna, was perhaps due to a second wave of Celtic migrants into the region. Sometime in the 600’s B.E. a wave of Celtic tribes from Central Europe. Central European Celtic movements into Iberia continued into the 4th century B.E., diminishing Tartessian influence, and resulting a demographic and cultural shift in Western Iberia.
This shift saw the ascendance of the Lusitani as a local power, and the birth of what the Greeks knew as Ophiussa, the Land of Serpents. In the East, the Avaccaei, a strong and warlike tribe built a system of alliances and expansionist campaigns resulting in the creation of the Celtiberian Federation, a strong league of Celtic tribes centered around the city of Numantia. They made alliances with several Iberian tribes and city-states (such as Saguntum) that would lead later to direct conflict with the invading Carthaginians of the 2nd century B.E.
Other major tribal and cultural spheres of influence included the Vaccae, a large, militaristic tribal Hegemon in central Iberia perhaps related to the Celtiberians, who practiced a system of egalitarianism and shared production [2]. They reigned supreme over their lands from their capital city of Palentia. The Carpetani were a tribal confederation of independent city-states to the south of the Vaccae. Directly to their south were the Germani, a unique Iberian tribe believed to have been descended of Belgic migrants from the 3rd century B.E. It is possible that they were Germanic in origin, though this seems unlikely. Along the Northern coastline of Iberia were four major groups. In the Western corner were the Kaliki, who were usually under Lusitani or Asturian influence. To their east were the Asturians, a strong tribal confederacy that ruled the mountainous north of Iberia, and the Cantabri, a staunchly independent Celtic tribe with considerably Vascone influences. And at the crook of the Bay of Biscay were the Vascones, a Pre-Indo-European people related to the Aquitani.
This was the landscape that Hamilqart Baraq faced when he invaded Iberia for Carthage, and the peoples that the Carthaginians found themselves fighting during the Baraqid War.
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[1] Galicia
[2] Descriptions of the Vaccae sound eerily like communism, actually
