Prehistoric Iberia

[1] The Pleistocene, first epoch of Quaternary, was characterized by climate oscillations between ice ages and interglacials that produced significant changes in Iberia's orography.

Holocene hosted several progressive transformations: territorial and cultural differentiation among Homo sapiens groups, birth of new social organizations and economies, transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry, and arrival of new peoples from the Mediterranean Sea and central Europe, with foundation of colonies.

[7] Upper Paleolithic (c. 40 - 11.5 ka ago) starts with the Aurignacian culture, which is mostly found in northern Iberia (current Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country and Catalonia) in the beginning, and is the work of Homo sapiens.

In Cantabria most Gravettian remains are found mixed with Aurignacian technology, thus it is considered "intrusive", in contrast with the Mediterranean area, where it probably means a real colonization.

Because of the last glacial maximum, western Europe was isolated and developed the Solutrean culture, which shows its earliest appearances in Les Mallaetes (Valencia), with radiocarbon date 20,890 BP.

The practice of this mural art increases in frequency in the Solutrean period, when the first animals are drawn, but it is not until the Magdalenian cultural phase when it becomes truly widespread, being found in almost every cave.

Most of the representations are of animals (bison, horse, deer, bull, reindeer, goat, bear, mammoth, moose) and are painted in ochre and black colors but there are exceptions and human-like forms as well as abstract drawings also appear in some sites.

Originally found in the old Magdalenian territory of Vasco-Cantabria and the wider Franco-Cantabrian region, Azilian-style culture eventually expanded to parts of Mediterranean Iberia as well.

In the Mediterranean area, virtually this same material culture is often named microlaminar microlithism because it lacks of the bone industry typical of Franco-Cantabrian Azilian.

In the late phases of the Epipaleolithic a new trend arrives from the north: the geometrical microlithism, directly related to Sauveterrian and Tardenoisian cultures of the Rhine-Danube region.

The Mediterranean geometrical microlithism has two facies: The rock art found at over 700 sites along the eastern side of Iberia is the most advanced and widespread surviving from this period, certainly in Europe, and arguably in the world.

[8] The Andalusian Neolithic also influenced other areas, notably Southern Portugal, where, soon after the arrival of agriculture, the first dolmen tombs begin to be built c. 4800 BC, being possibly the oldest of their kind anywhere.

While some remains of this culture have been found as far west as Portugal, its distribution is basically Mediterranean (Catalonia, Valencian region, Ebro valley, Balearic islands).

The Chalcolithic is also a period of increased social complexity and stratification and, in the case of Iberia, that of the rise of the first civilizations and of extensive exchange networks that would reach to the Baltic and Africa.

[18] Gordon Childe interpreted the presence of its characteristic artefact as the intrusion of "missionaries" expanding from Iberia along the Atlantic coast, spreading knowledge of Mediterranean copper metallurgy.

The Bell Beaker artefacts at least in their early phase are not distributed across a contiguous areal as is usual for archaeological cultures, but are found in insular concentrations scattered across Europe.

The earliest examples of the "maritime" Bell Beaker design have been found at the Tagus estuary in Portugal, radiocarbon dated to c. the 28th century BC.

Turek has recorded late Neolithic precursors in northern Africa, arguing the Maritime style emerged as a result of seaborne contacts between Iberia and Morocco in the first half of the third millennium BCE.

The most important ones are Los Millares in SE Spain and Zambujal (belonging to Vila Nova de São Pedro culture) in Portuguese Estremadura, that can well be called civilizations, even if they lack of the literary component.

On one side the tholos does have a precedent in that area (even if not used yet as tomb) but on the other there is no material evidence of any exchange between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, in contrast with the abundance of goods imported from Northern Europe and Africa.

The earliest elements of this culture were found along the lower Ebro river, then gradually expanded upstream to La Rioja and in a hybrid local form to Alava.

The Greeks finally founded their own colony at Ampurias, in the eastern Mediterranean shore (modern Catalonia), during the 6th century BC beginning their settlement in the Iberian peninsula.

The name Tartessian, when applied in archaeology and linguistics, does not necessarily correlate with the semi-mythical city of Tartessos but only roughly with the area where it is typically assumed it should have been.

This late period is known as the Iberian culture, that in Western Andalusia and the non-Celtic areas of Extremadura is called Ibero-Turdetanian because of its stronger links with the Tartessian substrate.

This occurred mainly in Low Alentejo and Algarve, but had littoral extensions up to the Sado mouth (namely the important city of Bevipo, modern Alcácer do Sal).

The first form of writing in western Iberia (south of Portugal), the Southwest Paleohispanic script (still to be translated), dated to the 6th century BC, denotes strong Tartessian influence in its use of a modified Phoenician alphabet.

In the 4th century BC, the Celtici appear, a late expansion of Celtic culture into the southwest (southern Extremadura, Alentejo and northern Algarve).

A series of cities in Algarve, such as Balsa (Tavira), Baesuris (Castro Marim), Ossonoba (Faro) and Cilpes (Silves), became inhabited by the Cynetes.

After suffering defeat to the Romans in the First Punic War (264–241 BC), the Carthaginians began to extend their power into the interior of Iberia from their south eastern coastal settlements but this empire was to be short lived.

In 218 BC the Second Punic War started and the Carthaginian general Hannibal marched his armies, which included Iberians, from Iberia, across the Pyrenees and the Alps and attacked the Romans in Italy.