La Protohistoria en el territorio ártabro. Organización social y estructura territorial

This work proposes a study of the social organisation of the communities in the region of the artabrii since their beginnings as fortified and sedentary communities at the outset of the Iron Age, to their integration and reconfiguration after the Roman conquest. The main objective of this dissertation is to conduct an approach to the ways of relating and structuring of these communities, analysing their continuities and transformations. Addressing a hermeneutic perception of the archaeological research, the methodology is based on a holistic perspective, setting up a classification of those elements that allow to understand and categorize the social forms of the past and the strategies needed to represent them.

The area of study is the region of Artabria (in the Northwest of Gallaecia). Despite their remarkable references in classical sources, it had not yet received a joint archaeological study in the present. In this way, an "archaeo-historical and diachronic" synthesis has been set up, with this area as a spatial limit and with the beginnings of the fortified landscape (9th century BC) as a temporal limit. From the outset of the sedentary habitat, the social organization of these communities seem to point out a remarkable homogeneity. Nevertheless, and since the 6th century BC, it is possible to identify significant transformations which allow to glimpse

two different ways of understanding social relations.

Over the following centuries, both social trends experienced several modifications, materializing different cultural expressions and strategies of habitation. However, all of them seem to point towards a stabilisation and reaffirmation of their respective ethos, with marked differences between coastal and inland communities, whose different ways of seeing the world lasted until the arrival of Rome. Notwithstanding, a “third social way” seems to have appeared in the castro of Elviña, whose development, from the 2nd century BC, points towards a significantly different way of structuring itself as a society. Finally, and taking advantage of the volume of information gathered in previous sections, a study of these societies after the conquest of Rome is proposed. The territorial implantation of the Roman Empire will be analysed, focusing on its influence on local populations. It will be proposed a study perspective that allows to understand the indigenous point of view, acknowledging both the influence of the political domain and the capacity for local agency.