The Cividade de Bagunte and the Problems of Castro Architecture

Summary

It is generally accepted that the Castro Culture in northwestern Portugal exhibits a fairly consistent architectural tradition, characterized by the presence of certain construction techniques, structural forms, and organizational schemes. Despite this consensus, there is a pressing need for further research on the topic. Publications dedicated to the study of castro architecture are few, and they have mostly taken a broad approach that focuses on apparent commonalities between sites from across Galicia and northern Portugal. Authors have placed undue emphasis on singular features of the evidence from each site, overlooking the more complex and problematic questions that arise when a structure is viewed in the context of its own settlement. While these works have been effective in establishing some distinct architectural trends, their interpretive components are often oversimplified or unnecessarily speculative. Such an approach encourages tentative generalizations and contributes little toward an in-depth understanding of castro communities. This paper considers architectural evidence from the Cividade de Bagunte and a few nearby sites to demonstrate the complexity inherent in any comparative assessment of castro architecture. In short, this study seeks to raise meaningful questions while skeptically evaluating the evidence in a way that responds to the current state of architectural research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20305