Paleoetnología de la Hispánica Célticaetnoarqueología, etnohistoria y folklore como fuentes de la protohistoria

Abstract

This Ph.D. thesis aims to investigate the protohistoric societies of the Iberian Peninsula with the direct evidence and data from the archaeological contexts and through other sources that may contain information on the changing and polymorphic conglomerate of pre-Roman peoples in Celtic Iberia according to the parallelisms between them and the Atlantic and Central European world. This approach, in addition to taking into account the testimonies in Greco-Roman perspective fairly, is based on the existence of long-term processes starting at the Iron Age. Research, review and contextualization of sources of different kinds prove constant survival, syncretism and superposition phenomena throughout History. In particular, it demonstrates the feasibility of addressing the various cultural subsystems of Hispanic-Celtic communities through a strategy that combines Ethnoarchaeology, Ethnohistory and Folklore. The study and comparison of historical facts, narrative and Oral Literature and traditions, the customs of pre-modern Spain and Portugal allow to bring up, at least, subsistence patterns, legal systems and models of social structuring as well as to explore literary stories, rituals and Hispanic-Celtic mythological passages. Thus, it is possible to provide a comprehensive and holistic view of the Iron Age beyond universal themes and anthropological archetypes. This research line is even more interesting when taking into account the limitations inherent to the material culture when tackling all practices and intangible categories regarding social or spiritual conceptions of some communities in which, precisely, symbolic transcendence was inextricably linked with the rest of the elements and phases of life. Two directions have been followed in order to develop this research. On the one hand, we have analyzed the application of the various disciplines to prehistoric knowledge throughout the last century and a half. The successes and problems encountered allow to rethink how historians and archaeologists try to apprehend the Past. On the other hand, we rely on increasingly frequent papers following this path of plural knowledge of Antiquity to establish an overview of Celtic Iberia with many other cases studied by us. Thus, in addition to demonstrating the potential of our methodology, we want to understand better the communities of Celtic Iberia and provide new hypotheses for these societies and for its archaeological evidences. In short, the Paleoethnology of Celtic Iberia systematizes and draws together a way to study the economy, society and the ritual and symbolic world of Hispanic-Celtic communities through a comparative research of the various sources that have survived to this day.