THE MIDDLE AND THE BEGINING OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE IN THE
NORTHWESTERN IBERIA
Ana M. S. BETTENCOURT
Department of History, Social Sciences Institute, University of Minho, Braga (Portugal); Centro de
Investigação Transdisciplinar “Cultura, Espaço e Memória” – CITCEM/UM. Email:
[email protected]
Abstract: The main goals of this communication1 are to present a synthesis about the
Middle Bronze Age and the origins of the Late Bronze Age in the NW Iberia.
This work will be done taking into account the burial contexts and practices and the new
scenarios (compared to the Early Bronze Age) that structure the world: the settlements
and some “natural spaces”. These last places were sometimes materialized by the
ceremonial deposition of metallic artefacts, by erecting statue-menhirs, together with the
re-interpretation of the past loci, such as the reuse of rock engravings or by recording
other.
The new conception of the world is a understandable situation in a society depending
from agriculture, forestry and pastoral activities, tributary to the land and more sedentary
and bearer of a cosmology increasingly connected to the propriety of minerals and
metallic artefacts.
1
The present abstract was accepted by the Bronze2014 Organization Committee in 27 January of
2014.