Castro Culture (Other Keyword)
1-4 (4 Records)
Unique to the northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula, the ceremonial baths of the Iron Age Castro Culture present an entry point for our understanding of the social and symbolic mechanisms at work in Castro society. Not found anywhere else in Iberia, the precise use and meaning of the structures remains controversial. Were they an indigenous development, or a technology borrowed from the Roman world? Was their use related to personal grooming or ritual cleansing? Located within...
Calculating moment of inertia of spindle whorls as a method for understanding Iron Age textile production (2016)
Excavations of Iron Age hillfort's in Northwestern Portugal, known as castros, have yielded many spindle whorls, but no extant fabrics due to the nature of preservation in the region. This leaves the question "what types of textile were produced?" In an attempt to answer this question, I calculate the moment of inertia (MI) for spindle whorls collected from three different sites in the Ave River Valley. MI represents the angular momentum of a whorl, allowing for the whorls various...
The Cividade de Bagunte and the Problems of Castro Architecture (2018)
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...
GIS-Based Approaches to the Study of Castro Architecture (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The term "Castro Culture" refers to a set of evidential trends encountered in the archaeological record of Galicia and northern Portugal from roughly 900 BCE – 200 CE. Conventional definitions of the Castro Culture rely heavily on the architectural characteristics of the castros, a type of hillfort which is thought to represent the primary form of settlement...