A Viereckschanze (from German "four-corner-rampart"; plural -en) is a rectangular ditched enclosure that was constructed during the Iron Age in parts of Celtic Western Europe. They are widespread in Germany, parts of northern France [1] [2] and also in some regions of the Iberian Peninsula, most notably in Portugal. [3]
The Celtic languages are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yves Pezron, who made the explicit link between the Celts described by classical writers and the Welsh and Breton languages.
The Celts or Celtic peoples were a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii; and the Galatians. The relation between ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world is unclear and debated; for example over the ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group.
Portuguese is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone". As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology in its lexicon.
Borvo or Bormo was an ancient Celtic god of healing springs worshipped in Gauls and Gallaecia. He was sometimes identified with the Graeco-Roman god Apollo, although his cult had preserved a high degree of autonomy during the Roman period.
Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe,, known as Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been an emeritus professor.
The Lusitanians were a people living in the far west of the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding roughly to Central Portugal and some areas of modern-day Extremadura and Castilla y Leon, in Spain. After its conquest by the Roman Republic the land was subsequently incorporated as a Roman province named after them (Lusitania).
Atlantic Europe is a geographical term for the western portion of Europe which borders the Atlantic Ocean. The term may refer to the idea of Atlantic Europe as a cultural unit and/or as a biogeographical region.
A nemeton was a sacred space of ancient Celtic religion. Nemeta appear to have been primarily situated in natural areas, often sacred groves. However, other evidence suggests that the word implied a wider variety of ritual spaces, such as shrines and temples. Evidence for nemeta consists chiefly of inscriptions and toponymy or place-names, which occur all across the Celtic world. Toponyms related to the word nemeton occur as far west as Galicia in the Iberian peninsula, as far north as Scotland, and as far east as central Turkey. The word is related to the name of the Nemetes tribe living by the Rhine between the Palatinate and Lake Constance in what is now Germany, and their goddess Nemetona.
A league is a unit of length. It was common in Europe and Latin America, but is no longer an official unit in any nation. Derived from an ancient Celtic unit and adopted by the Romans as the leuga, the league became a common unit of measurement throughout western Europe. Since the Middle Ages, many values have been specified in several countries.
Lusitanian was an Indo-European Paleohispanic language. There has been support for either a connection with the ancient Italic languages or Celtic languages. It is known from only six sizeable inscriptions, dated from c. 1 CE, and numerous names of places (toponyms) and of gods (theonyms). The language was spoken in the territory inhabited by Lusitanian tribes, from the Douro to the Tagus rivers, territory that today falls in central Portugal and western Spain.
The Cynetes or Conii were one of the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, living in today's Algarve and Lower Alentejo regions of southern Portugal, and the southern part of Badajoz and the northwestern portions of Córdoba and Ciudad Real provinces in Spain before the 6th century BCE. According to Justin's epitome, the mythical Gargoris and Habis were their founding kings.
Tartessian is an extinct Paleo-Hispanic language found in the Southwestern inscriptions of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly located in the south of Portugal, and the southwest of Spain. There are 95 such inscriptions, the longest having 82 readable signs. Around one third of them were found in Early Iron Age necropolises or other Iron Age burial sites associated with rich complex burials. It is usual to date them to the 7th century BC and to consider the southwestern script to be the most ancient Paleo-Hispanic script, with characters most closely resembling specific Phoenician letter forms found in inscriptions dated to c. 825 BC. Five of the inscriptions occur on stelae with what has been interpreted as Late Bronze Age carved warrior gear from the Urnfield culture.
Alcimoennis or Alkimoennis is the name widely attached to a Celtic Oppidum, or hill fort above the modern town of Kelheim in Bavaria, Germany. The name comes from Ptolemy, who in his Geography, only mentioned the name and described the location of the settlement. There is some controversy over the identification of the Kelheim remains with Alcimoennis, but it is still widely accepted.
The Celtic nations or Celtic countries are a cultural area and collection of geographical regions in Northwestern Europe where the Celtic languages and cultural traits have survived. The term nation is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common identity and culture and are identified with a traditional territory.
Königheim is a country town in the district of Main-Tauber in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It consists of the villages Brehmen, Gissigheim, Königheim, and Pülfringen.
Kirchentellinsfurt is a municipality in the district of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg in Germany, about 7 km east of the city of Tübingen and 7 km northwest of Reutlingen. Since 2015, Bernd Haug has been the mayor of Kirchentellinsfurt.
Prehistory in the Iberian peninsula begins with the arrival of the first Homo genus representatives from Africa, which may range from c. 1.5 million years (Ma) ago to c. 1.25 Ma ago, depending on the dating technique employed, so it is set at c. 1.3 Ma ago for convenience. The end of Iberian prehistory coincides with the first entrance of the Roman army into the peninsula, in 218 before Christ (BC), which led to the progressive dissolution of pre-Roman peoples in Roman culture. This end date is also conventional, since pre-Roman writing systems can be traced to as early as 5th century BC.
Gallaecian or Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Celtic language of the Hispano-Celtic group. It was spoken by the Gallaeci in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula around the start of the 1st millennium. That became the Roman province of Gallaecia, wich is now divided between the Spanish regions of Galicia, western Asturias and the Province of León, and the North Region in Portugal.
Plan of the densely-occupied Bopfingen: the 2nd-century BC Viereckschanze (83 m x 73 m) is at the bottom, a 9.5 x 10 m building lies inside the Viereckschanze to the lower left, and two other buildings are visible as large post holes at opposite ...