Sobre los orígenes de Lusitania

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7920529

Résumé

The Lusitani are one of the main peoples of pre‑Roman Iberia (Strab. III,3,3). Its territory and its archaic society, religion and language are analyzed, as well as some popular folk traditions of Lusitanian origin. The dispersion of the “Lusitanian” warrior stelae from the Bronze Age and the Galician‑Lusitanian warrior sculptures from the Iron Age coincides with the epigraphs in Lusitanian language and with Lusitanian theonyms and anthroponyms. They delimit the ancient Lusitania. This interdisciplinary analysis raises the origin of the warlike Lusitani as semi‑nomadic Indo‑European warrior‑shepherds, probably originating from the steppes of Ukraine, adapted from the Bell Beaker times to the pastoral siliceous regions of western Iberia, until Augustus divided their territory by creating the Provincia Lusitania 16 B.C. to subdue them.