Editing History of Portugal (section)

=== Prehistory ===
{{Main|Prehistoric Iberia}}
[[File:Aroeira3.jpg|thumb|[[Aroeira 3]] skull of 400,000 year old ''[[Homo heidelbergensis]]''.<br />The oldest trace of human history in Portugal.]]

The region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by humans since circa 400,000 years ago, when [[Homo heidelbergensis]] entered the area. The oldest human fossil found in Portugal is the 400,000-year-old ''[[Aroeira 3]]'' ''H. Heidelbergensis'' skull discovered in the [[Cave of Aroeira]] in 2014.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://phys.org/news/2017-03-year-old-fossil-human-cranium-oldest.html|title=400,000-year-old fossil human cranium is oldest ever found in Portugal|website=phys.org|access-date=14 April 2018}}</ref> Later [[Neanderthal]]s roamed the northern Iberian peninsula and a tooth has been found at Nova da Columbeira cave in [[Estremadura Province (1936–76)|Estremadura]].<ref name="Birmp1"/> [[Homo sapiens sapiens]] arrived in Portugal around 35,000 years ago, spreading and roaming the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula.<ref name="Birmp1">David Birmingham (2003), p. 11</ref><ref>{{harvp|Disney|2009|p=5}}</ref> These were subsistence societies and although they did not establish prosperous settlements, they did form organized societies. Neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and fluvial or marine fishing.<ref name=Birmp1/>

Pre-Celtic tribes inhabited Portugal leaving a cultural footprint. The [[Cynetes]] developed a written language, leaving many [[stelae]], which are mainly found in the south of Portugal. Early in the first millennium BC, waves of [[Celts]] invaded Portugal from Central Europe and inter-married with the local populations, forming [[Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula|different tribes]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=So1mDwAAQBAJ&q=different+celtic+tribes+in+Portugal&pg=PA63|title=Portugal|edition=3rd|first1=Jay|last1=Heale|first2=Angeline|last2=Koh|first3=Elizabeth|last3=Schmermund|date=2016|publisher=Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC|isbn=978-1-5026-1694-4|via=Google Books}}</ref> Another theory suggests that Celts inhabited western Iberia / Portugal well before any large Celtic migrations from [[Central Europe]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Garstk |first1=Kevin |title=Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics, Language and Literature. Edited by Barry Cunliffe and John T. Koch. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010. 384 pages. ISBN 978-1842174104 |journal=E-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies |date=28 August 2012 |volume=9 |issue=1 |id={{ProQuest|1095733285}} |url=https://dc.uwm.edu/ekeltoi/vol9/iss1/9/ }}</ref> A number of linguists expert in ancient Celtic have presented compelling evidence that the [[Tartessian language]], once spoken in parts of SW Spain and SW Portugal, is at least proto-Celtic in structure.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.historyireland.com/pre-history-archaeology/tartessian-europes-newest-and-oldest-celtic-language/|title=Tartessian, Europe's newest and oldest Celtic language|date=5 March 2013}}</ref>
[[File:Rock Art Foz Coa 01.jpg|thumb|[[Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Valley]]]]

The Celtic presence in Portugal is traceable, in broad outline, through archaeological and linguistic evidence. They dominated much of northern and central Portugal; but in the south, they were unable to establish their stronghold, which retained its non-Indo-European character until the Roman conquest.<ref>{{harvp|Disney|2009|p=15}}</ref> In southern Portugal, some small, semi-permanent commercial coastal settlements were also founded by Phoenician-Carthaginians.

Modern archaeology and research shows a Portuguese root to the Celts in Portugal and elsewhere.<ref>{{cite web |title=Our Celtic roots lie in Spain and Portugal |url=http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/celtic-roots-lie-spain-portugal-2174486 |access-date=11 April 2017 |website=Wales Online |last= Devine |first=Darren |date=4 May 2008 }}</ref> During that period and until the Roman invasions, the Castro culture (a variation of the [[Urnfield culture]] also known as ''Urnenfelderkultur'') was prolific in Portugal and modern Galicia.<ref>{{cite web|last=Trombetta|first=Silvana|date=29 March 2018|title=Celts and the Castro Culture in the Iberian Peninsula – issues of national identity and Proto-Celtic substratum|url=http://ppg.revistas.uema.br/index.php/brathair/article/download/1785/1305|access-date=11 July 2020|website=ppg.revistas.uema.br}}</ref><ref>Estos se establecieron en el norte de Portugal y el área de la [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]] actual, introduciendo en esta región la cultura de las urnas, una variante de las Urnenfelder que evolucionaría después en la cultura de los castros o castreña</ref> This culture, together with the surviving elements of the Atlantic megalithic culture<ref>{{cite web|last=|first=|date=19 September 2019|title=Celts Part 1|url=https://peopleinhistory.co.uk/celts-part-1|website=People In History|access-date=6 July 2020|archive-date=27 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927060111/https://peopleinhistory.co.uk/celts-part-1|url-status=dead}}</ref> and the contributions that come from the more Western Mediterranean cultures, ended up in what has been called the Cultura Castreja or [[Castro Culture]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dDV-AgAAQBAJ&q=Castro+culture+celt+portugal+Cit%C3%A2nia&pg=PA209|title=The Archaeology of Celtic Art|first=D.W.|last=Harding|date= 2007|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-26464-3|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C3cUtvx8uwIC&q=Castro+culture+celt+portugal&pg=PA547|title=The Celtic World|first1=Miranda J.|last1=Green|first2=Miranda Jane|last2=Aldhouse-Green|date=1995|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-05764-6|via=Google Books}}</ref> This designation refers to the characteristic Celtic populations called 'dùn', 'dùin' or 'don' in [[Goidelic languages|Gaelic]] and that the Romans called castrae in their chronicles.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.academia.edu/40149889|title=The Irish connection with Chadic and Afro-Asiatic languages|first=Lughais MacAoidh|last=Banbridge|via=www.academia.edu}}{{dead link|date=November 2020}}</ref>
[[File:Centro de Alcalar 2017 - Monumento 9 - Entrada (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Megalithic Monuments of Alcalar]], built in the 3rd millennium BC]]
[[File: Citania briteiros casa 2.jpg|thumb|Example of Castræ round houses, [[Citânia de Briteiros]]]]

Based on the Roman chronicles about the [[Callaeci]] peoples, along with the [[Lebor Gabála Érenn]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/leborgablare01macauoft|title=Lebor gabála Érenn: The book of the taking of Ireland|first=Robert Alexander Stewart|last=Macalister|publisher=Dublin : Published for the Irish texts Society by the Educational Company of Ireland|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> narrations and the interpretation of the archaeological remains throughout the northern half of Portugal and Galicia, it is possible to infer that there was a matriarchal society, with a military and religious aristocracy probably of the feudal type.
{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} The figures of maximum authority were the chieftain (chefe tribal), of military type and with authority in his Castro or clan, and the druid, mainly referring to medical and religious functions that could be common to several castros. The Celtic cosmogony remained homogeneous due to the ability of the [[druids]] to meet in councils with the druids of other areas, which ensured the transmission of knowledge and the most significant events.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}}

The first documentary references to Castro society are provided by chroniclers of Roman military campaigns such as [[Strabo]], [[Herodotus]] and [[Pliny the Elder]] among others, about the social organization, and describing the inhabitants of these territories, the [[Gallaecia|Gallaeci of Northern Portugal]] as: "A group of barbarians who spend the day fighting and the night eating, drinking and dancing under the moon."

There were other similar tribes, and chief among them were the [[Lusitanians]]; the core area of these people lay in inland central Portugal, while numerous other related tribes existed such as the [[Celtici|Celtici of Alentejo]], and the [[Cynetes|Cynetes or Conii of the Algarve]]. Among the tribes or sub-divisions were the [[Bracari]], [[Coelerni]], [[Equaesi]], [[Grovii]], [[Interamici]], [[Leuni]], [[Luanqui]], [[Limici]], [[Narbasi]], [[Nemetati]], [[Paesuri]], [[Quaquerni]], [[Seurbi]], [[Tamagani]], [[Tapoli]], [[Turduli]], [[Turduli Veteres]], [[Turduli Oppidani]], [[Turodi]], and [[Zoelae]]. A few small, semi-permanent, commercial coastal settlements (such as [[Tavira Municipality|Tavira]]) were also founded in the [[Algarve]] region by [[Phoenicians]]–[[Carthaginians]].