Cividade de Terroso

it was built at the summit of Cividade Hill, in the suburban area of Terroso, less than 5 km from the coast, near the eastern edge of modern Póvoa de Varzim.

This data is supported by the discovery of egg-shaped cesspits, excavated in 1981 by Armando Coelho, where he collected fragments of four vases of the earlier period prior to the settlement of the Cividade.

[4] The city prospered due to its strong defensive walls and its location near the ocean, which facilitated trade with the maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, mainly during the Carthaginian rule in the South-eastern Iberian Peninsula.

They attacked the Roman settlements in Lusitania, gaining momentum with the support of other tribes along the way, reaching the south of the Peninsula, near modern Andalusia.

[6] Nonetheless, Appian mentioned two battles led by Brutus, in which women fought alongside the men, both ended in a Roman victory.

Archaeological data in Cividade de Terroso and tribesmen's Last Stand behavior, which included their children in one of those battles, highlight the barbarity of the conquest.

An early fish factory and salt evaporation ponds were built near the new villa, and a later one with a cetariæ and a housing complex, with one of those buildings dating to the 1st century.

[3] The Lieutenant Veiga Leal in the News of Póvoa de Varzim on May 24 of 1758 wrote: "From the hill known as Cividade, one can see several hints of houses, that the people say formed a city, cars with bricks from the ruins of that one arrive in this town.

In the early 20th century, Rocha Peixoto encouraged his friend António dos Santos Graça to subsidize archaeology works.

[3] In 1906, excavations began on June 5 with 25 manual workers and continued until October, interrupted due to bad weather;[3] they recommenced in May 1907, finishing in that same year.

[3] In 1980, Póvoa de Varzim City Hall invited Armando Coelho to pursue further archaeology works; these took place during the summer of that year.

In 2005, groups of Portuguese and Spanish (Galician) archaeologists had started to study the hypothesis of this cividade and six others to be classified as World Heritage sites of UNESCO.

The migrations of Turduli and Celtici proceeding from the south of the Iberian Peninsula heading north are referred by Strabo and were the reason for the improvement of the defensive systems of the castros around 500 BC.

The areas of easier access (South, East and West) possessed high, wide and resistant walls; while the ones in land with steep slopes were protected mainly by strengthening the local features.

That can easily be visible with the discovered structures in the East that present a strong defensive system that reaches 5.30 metres (17 feet 5 inches) wide.

[3] During this stage, stonework used in home construction was quadrangular; the project of two stone alignments remained, but rooms were wider and filled with large sand grains or adobe and rocks of small to average size, resulting in thicker walls with 45–60 cm.

[3] The building interiors of the second stage, prior to the Roman period, possessed fine floors made of adobe or large sand-grains.

[19] The Castro culture is known by having defensive walls in their cities and villages, with circular houses in hilltops and for its characteristic ceramics, widely popular among them.

[19] The animals used by the Castro people are confirmed by classical documents and archaeological registers, and included horses, pigs, cows and sheep.

[19] Pottery was seen as a man's work and significant amounts were found with great variety, showing that it was a cheap, important and accessible product.

Other decorative forms, that can appear mixed and with diverse techniques, include circles, triangles, semicircles, lines, in zig-zag, in a total of about two hundred of different kinds of drawings.

[19] Weaving was sufficiently generalized and was seen as a woman's duty and was also progressing, especially during the Roman period; some weights of sewing press were found and sets of ten of cossoiros.

[19] Numerous vestiges of metallurgic activities had been detected and great amounts of casting slags, fibulae, fragmented iron objects and other metals remains were discovered, mostly lead, copper/bronze, tin and perhaps gold.

[19] Near the door of the wall (in the southwest of the city) a workshop was identified, given that in the place some vestiges of this activity had been found such as the use of fire with high temperatures, nugget and slags for casting metals, ores and other indications.

In all the mountain range of Rates, the ancient mining explorations are visible: Castro and Roman ones, given that these hills possessed the essential gold and silver used for jewellery production.

In 1904, a mason while building a mill in the top of São Félix Hill, in the vicinity of the smaller Castro de Laundos, found a vase with jewellery inside, these pieces had been bought by Rocha Peixoto that took them to the Museum of Porto.

[21] The ritual of the Cividade was the rite of cremation and placing the ashes of their dead in small circular-shaped cesspits with stonework adornment in the interior of the houses.

[21] The visits of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans had as objective the exchange of fabrics and wine for gold and tin, despite the scarcity of terrestrial ways, this was not a problem for Cividade de Terroso that was strategically located close to the sea and the Ave River, thus an extensive commerce existed via the Atlantic and river routes as archeological remains prove.

[22] The external commerce, dominated by tin, was complemented with domestic commerce in tribal markets between the different cities and villages of the Castro culture, they exchanged textiles, metals (gold, copper, tin and lead) and other objects including exotic products, such as glass or exotic ceramics, proceeding from contacts with the peoples of the Mediterranean or other areas of the Peninsula.

[22] In the entrance of the town there is a small museum with facilities that are intended only to support the visit to the Cividade itself, such as pictures, representations and public toilets.