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Portugal Early Inhabitants
Lusitania has been inhabited since the Paleolithic
period.
Implements made by humans have been found at widely
scattered
sites. The Ice Ages did not touch Lusitania, and it was
only
after the disappearance of the Paleolithic hunting
cultures that
a warmer climate gave rise to a river-centered culture. At
the
end of the Paleolithic period, about 7000 B.C., the valley
of the
Tagus River (Portuguese, Rio Tejo) was populated by
hunting and
fishing tribes, who lived at the mouths of the river's
tributaries. These people left huge kitchen middens
containing
the remains of shellfish and crustaceans, as well as the
bones of
oxen, deer, sheep, horses, pigs, wild dogs, badgers, and
cats.
Later, perhaps about 3000 B.C., Neolithic peoples
constructed
crude dwellings and began to practice agriculture. They
used
polished stone tools, made ceramics, and practiced a cult
of the
dead, building many funerary monuments called dolmens. By
the end
of the Neolithic period, about 2000 B.C., regions of
cultural
differentiation began to appear among the Stone Age
inhabitants
of the Iberian Peninsula, one of these being the western
Megalithic culture. Present-day Portugal is thus rich in
Megalithic neocropolises, the best known of which are at
Palmela,
Alcalar, Reguengos, and Monsaraz.
The Paleolithic and Neolithic periods were followed by
the
Bronze Age and the Iron Age (probably between 1500 and
1000
B.C.). During this time, the Iberian Peninsula was
colonized by
various peoples. One of the oldest were the Lígures, about
whom
little is known. Another were the Iberos, thought to have
come
from North Africa. The Iberos were a sedentary people who
used a
primitive plow, wheeled carts, had writing, and made
offerings to
the dead.
Data as of January 1993
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