Ámbitos funerario y doméstico en la Prehistoria de NO. de la Península Ibérica

Abstract

Between the end of the 4th millenium be and the first half of the 2nd, monumental butial mounds are recorded in vast numbers in Galicia and Northen Portugal: their characteristics change over time, but they oceupy a conspicous place in the landscape. By conttast, settlements have an ephemeral character: they include rock shelters and open air sites and were never a prominent feature of the landscape. This trend continúes until the Later Bronze Age when we find the first use of fortifications and defensible locations. At the same time, funerary monuments may disappear altogether. It seems as if domestic monuments supersede monuments devote to the dead. Anyway this might have not been a general trend, for in inner NW. áreas where fortifications seems to appear later or even in neighboring regions such Asturias where the "habitational vacuum" continúes even until the Román Conquest, monumental burial mounds could have lasted longer than elsewhere.