celts, collective identity and archaeological responsibility: asturias (northern spain) as case...

7/27/2019 Celts, Collective Identity and Archaeological Responsibility: Asturias (Northern Spain) as case study

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Celts, Collective Identity and Archaeological Responsibility:

Asturias (Northern Spain) as case study

David Gonzlez lvarez, Carlos Marn Surez

Abstract

Celtism was introduced in Asturias (Northern Spain) as a source of identity in the 19th century by the bourgeoisand intellectual elite which developed the Asturianism and a regionalist political agenda. The archaeological Celtsdid not appear until Franco dictatorship, when they were linked to the Iron Age hillforts. Since the beginning ofSpanish democracy, in 1978, most of the archaeologists who have been working on Asturian Iron Age have omit-ted ethnic studies. Today, almost nobody speaks about Celts in Academia. But, in the last years the Celtism haswidespread on Asturian society. Celts are a very important political reference point in the new frame of Autonomousregions in Spain. In this context, archaeologists must to assume our responsibility in order of clarifying the uses andabuses of Celtism as a historiographical myth. We have to transmit the deconstruction of Celtism to society and weshould be able to present alternatives to these archaeological old discourses in which Celtism entail the assumptionof an ethnocentric, hierarchical and androcentric view of the past.

Zusammenfassung

Der Keltizismus wurde in Asturien (Nordspanien) als identittsstiftende Ressource im 19. Jahrhundert durchbrgerliche und intellektuelle Eliten entwickelt, die Asturianismus und regionalistische politische Ziele propagierte.Die archologischen Kelten erschienen allerdings erst whrend der Franco-Diktatur, whrend der sie mit den eisen-zeitlichen befestigten Hhensiedlungen verknpft wurden. Seit der Einfhrung der Demokratie in Spanien im Jahr1978 haben die meisten Archologen, die ber die asturische Eisenzeit arbeiten, ethnische Studien vernachlssigt.In der modernen asturischen Wissenschaft spricht so gut wie niemand mehr ber die Kelten. Allerdings ist in denletzten Jahren der Keltizismus in der asturischen Gesellschaft ein populres Thema geworden. Die Kelten sindheute ein bedeutendes politisches Schlagwort im neuen Rahmen der autonomen Regionen in Spanien. In diesemKontext mssen sich Archologen ihrer Verpflichtung besinnen, die Nutzung und den Misbrauch des Keltizismusals historiographischen Mythos zu erklren. Wir mssen die Dekonstruktion des Keltizismus ffentlich vermittelnund sollten dazu im Stande sein, Alternativen zu den alten archologischen Erzhlungen anzubieten, in denender Keltizismus auf ethnizentrischen, hierarchischen und androzentrischen Vorstellungen ber die Vergangenheitberuht.


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1. Introduction

Asturias is a small region in Northern Spain facingthe Cantabrian Sea. It is bordered on the south by theCantabrian Mountains, a barrier of high peaks that

separates Asturias from Central Iberia.In the Middle Ages, the former Kingdom of Astu-rias was one of the few areas that remained outside theMuslim conquest of 8th century. Later, it served as astarting point of the Christian advance further south.Therefore, this medieval kingdom was instrumental inthe idea of Spain and Spanishness. It was understood,and it still is, as its alma mater. The History of Asturias,like Kosovo to Serbs, has been used both for the vin-dication of the idea of Spain as for the Asturias.

Since the Age of Enlightenment, political identi-

ty of some Asturian from the bourgeoisie and thearistocracy moved progressively from the Spanishto regional sphere. The historical significance of theKingdom of Asturias was gradually redefined, with anew regionalist perspective. If the Kingdom of Asturiashad provided the institutional and legal bases for po-litical and cultural demands of Asturias, from Enlight-enment the reference to ethnicity, race and culture forpre-Roman times became increasingly important. Thepre-Roman period will be seen as the birth of the As-turian nation, with the asturesas their legendary refer-

ences (Marn 2005a).Here, we will look at the role that Archaeology hasplayed in the creation of these representations of theIron Age in Asturias. We will pay attention on Celts asa historical construction, and finally, we will offer ourperspective on the representation of the past into thepresent, and the relationship between archaeologistsand the social context where we work.

2. The Celts appear

In the 16th century, some Asturian authors began tomention the Celts. They reviewed the names of an-cient peoples in order to find their ancestors, as it wastypical in Europe since the Renaissance historiogra-phy (Barreiro, 1993: 183). Greek and Roman sourc-es were considered as indisputable authorities, whichdisplaced biblical or hagiographical sources. Historyserved as honorary instruments for the Asturian aris-

tocracy, which sought to legitimize their sociopoliticalposition. The pre-Roman past progressively became aninstrument of vindication (Bermejo 1989: 81; Daz-

Andreu, Mora, 1995: 28).Jovellanos stands out among these authors. He wasa very influential politician in the Court of Madrid inthe late 18th century. In Asturias, he was known as thefather of a cultural and political movement calledAs-turianism(San Martn 1998: 25). He developed popularhistoriographical topics that have been repeated insist-ently until now: the similarity between pre-Roman peoples and the

contemporary Asturian society. the essentialist idea that Asturias was born during the

Iron Age and reached its golden age with the King-dom of Asturias. the characteristic features of the Asturians are the

struggle, ferocity, and resistance against the invaders.Asturianism was set up as a political enlightened

project. It was similar to other European countrieswhere, before Nationalism, a cultural identitywas beingbuilt by reinterpreting some elements of ethnic iden-tity language, traditions and history (FernndezGonzlez 2000: 77).

3. Celts and Archaeo-Historical narratives

In the late 19th century, there was a great developmentof studies on Asturian history, ethnography, folklore,literature encouraged by regional political inter-ests. The Celtic theses emerged with force (Champion1996: 66; Cunliffe 2003: 111), but Spanish archaeolo-gists still remained outside the major European par-adigm about Celts and Iron Age. Here, Celts wereassociated with megalithic monuments, but never withIron Age elements.

The Asturian, Galician and Cantabrian pre-Romanpeoples mentioned by classical authors such as Strabowere seen as Celts. The distinctiveness of Northern re-gions, such as Asturias, was highlighted. Homophonyof the terms was a key factor in this essentialist iden-tification (Fig.1).

After ensuring that the Celts were settled in Astu-rias, they described some features that characterize the


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contemporary Asturian people as of Celtic descent.The dances and songs of traditional music derive fromthe Celtic warriors who sang it when they went intobattle. The Celtic essence also remains in the Asturi-ans courage and their love of freedom, since they werethe only people that were conquered neither by the

Muslims or by Napoleon. These stories of the late 19thand early 20th centuries used to mix data from classicalhistorians, linguistics, ethnography and mythology. Theresult was a mythical reconstruction of the past (Marn2004; 2005a; 2005b).

When they sought the archaeological Celticity oftheir pre-Roman ancestors, they still talked aboutmegaliths and Palaeolithic cave paintings, althoughin those years some Iron Age hillforts were knownalready (i.e. Flrez 1878).

The first regionalist party with parliamentary rep-

resentation in the Spanish Parliament was JuntaRegionalista Asturiana in 1916. His regionalism wasnot nationalistic. They only wanted to recover theoriginality and historical personality of Asturias, tostrengthen its political clout within the Spanish state(San Martn 1998; 2006; Fernndez Gonzlez 2000). Inthe political texts of the party, the History of Asturiaswas mythologized, with the Celts in its origin.

4.Celts and Francos dictatorship in Asturias

During the Franco dictatorship, archaeologists linkedthe Asturian hillforts of the Iron Age to the Celts forthe first time. They would monopolize the Celtic dis-course (Daz-Andreu 1993: 75; Ruiz Zapatero 2003:

224). The cultural and political elites continued pro-moting the study of local issues. The previous histori-ographical topics (Acevedo 1893; Canella, Bellmunt18951900) were used, but from a clearly Spanish pointof view. This was possible thanks to the ambiguity ofessentialist discourses of Asturian regionalism, becausethat way of thinking could effectively support both theSpanishness and the Asturianism (Fernndez Gonzlez2000: 82; San Martn 2006). In 1946 the Instituto deEstudios Asturianos was created within the scheme ofthe Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas(Scien-

tific Research Council), which was an institution runby the Catholic sect Opus Dei, where all scientific andcultural institutions were centralized after the insur-gency of 1936 (Ura 1984: 57; Mora 2003).

The role played by these archaeologists within thefascist dictatorship was the discoveryof the racial bas-es of Spanishness the Celts to legitimize the im-posed political system (Daz-Andreu 2003: 57; Ruiz

Fig.1: The pre-Roman peoples mentioned by classical authors serve as references to contempo-rary national identities (Ruiz Zapatero 2006).


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Zapatero 2003: 2289). They tried to prove the Celt-ic character of Iron Age in many areas of Spain, in-cluding the Castro culture of the Northwest (Pereira2000; Gonzlez Ruibal 20062007: 418). They com-bined linguistic and ethnographic data uncritically, andthey made forced analogies in space and time for

example, with medieval Irish mythology or with theCentral-European Iron Age (Collis 2003). The ex-cavations of some Asturian hillforts helped to builda Spanish racial unity raised by archaeologists relatedto the Franco regime as Julio Martnez Santa-Olalla(1946) and Martn Almagro Basch (1952). The refer-ence to the Celts was the easiest option, refusing insome cases the Iberian culture of the Mediterraneanregion (Ruiz Zapatero 2003: 226).

It is not a coincidence that the Culture-historicalparadigm was consolidated in Spain at this time, clear-

ly related to the nationalist ideology and ethnocentricvision of the past. Cultural change was only explainedby conquests or peoples migrations. Archaeologicaldata were used to relate archaeological cultures withcurrent languages, peoples and races (Lpez Jimnez2001).

Since 1940, Antonio Garca y Bellido and Juan UriaRu excavated several sites in Asturias (Garca y Bellido

1941; 1942; Garca y Bellido, Ura 1940) with the aimof determining if their inhabitants were or were notthe Celts of classical sources (Fig.2). Ancient histori-ans did not mention the Celticity of pre-Roman peo-ples from actual Asturias or Cantabria, although this

was not a problem for them.Archaeologists who worked in Asturias at thetime started to use the concept of Castro culture,in relation to other Celtic Spanish areas. In Galicia,the Celtic explanation had been used in Archaeologysince the 1920s (Gonzlez Ruibal 20062007: 4860).Ethnic studies became the main focus of attention forarchaeologists, above chronological, geographical andtypological studies. They appealed to strongly racialconceptions of archaeological cultures, and archaeolog-ical data were self-serving interpreted (Marn 2011).

For example, they argued that the mortars were actu-ally urns for the ashes of the dead, so the Celtic ritualof incineration would be documented (Ura 1945).

The Celtic label became extremely blurred and itwas unclear if it was used in an ethnic, linguistic, racialor material sense. Sometimes, a hillfort was consideredCeltic because a single piece of one kind of decoratedpottery appeared (Ura 1941).

Even the authors who developed this model statedthey were not able to check the Celticity of Asturianhillforts. There was a clear lack of definition of what

was meant by Celtic in the archaeological record. Inany case, all hillforts studied in Asturias will be labelledas Celtic, using sources as uncertain as Avienus work(Gonzlez 1976).

Further archaeological research will be marked bythe blind acceptance of Celtic factoid, as Simon Jamesmeant (1999: 136): a theoretical construction hidedas a fact. The Celtic paradigm in Spanish Iron AgeArchaeology contributed to theoretical and method-ological stagnation during the Franco period.

5. Celts disappeared from Academia

Since the late 1970s, Celtic-based interpretations wereroughly forgotten in Asturias. Since then, academ-ic discussion has focused on chronological aspects, inmaterial typologies, descriptions of ramparts, etc. andlooking for a more scientific discourse in the Ar-chaeology of Asturian Iron Age (Marn 2004: 8692).

Fig. 2: Reconstruction view of Coaa hillfort drawn by AntonioGarca y Bellido (1942).


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Many technical innovations will be adopted in theSpanish Archaeology from the 1980s. With a Culture-historical theoretical background, new methods helpedthe new archaeologists to distinguish themselves con-ceptually from previous generations (Hernando 1992:19). In this way they will able to accumulate scien-

tific capital very quickly (sensuBourdieu 1999a: 81).The Celtic paradigm was abandoned. These authorspreferred a sterile scientism they find in the NewArchaeology, omitting the social interpretation of thearchaeological record (i.e.Villa 2002; 2007).

6. but Celts were widespread at popular level

While Celts were eliminated from the archaeologicalscientific discourse, there was a real explosion of Celt-ism at a popular level with the coming of democracy

(Marn 2005a: 15182). In the late 1960s and especial-ly in the 1970s some nationalist political currents inAsturias began to grow. Their ideology recovered theconstructions of Asturian regionalism from early 20thcentury, returning to the vindication of the idea of As-turias over time.

The 1978 Spanish Constitution created a modelof territorial organization midway between the cen-

tral and federal state. The Autonomous Communitiesgained a great power within the Spanish State, and theybegan to arm themselves with an ideological devicein order to defend the national historic rights in theirregion. At the same time, there was development ofnationalist political parties (Gonzlez Morales 1994;

Ruiz Zapatero 2006: 2003).In 1977, the first Asturian nationalist party theConceyu Nacionalista Astur was founded with a left-ist revolutionary project to fight for the self-determi-nation of Asturias (San Martn 2006). They interpretedthe countrys situation as a colonial reality. It was thefirst in a series of parties, unions and political groupsthat began to make use of the alleged Celtic past ofAsturias. They compared the struggle between Astu-rias and Spain with the rest of Celtic countriesin the At-lantic region with the fights of Celts against Rome in

the antiquity (Fig.3).In general, the Asturian nationalism is a leftist move-ment aiming to achieve a nation-state based on Celtic eth-nicity and Socialism (Girn 2000: 106). The Asturianuniqueness was usually marked by establishing a directcontinuity with the past in an essentialist way. This iscommon to all nationalist ideologies. The Asturiannationalism established continuities from the Iron Age

Fig. 3: Poster of the Asturian nationalist party Conceyu Nacionalista Astur: Celtic nations fighting for freedom.


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and the Kingdom of Asturias until the present (Iglesias1999). These discourses were often disguised as scien-tific and unsurprisingly resorted to Archaeology, sinceCeltic explanations had prevailed in Academia for dec-ades (Collis 2006: 2001).

Nationalist parties still have little electoral clout inAsturias, but we must not confuse their small represen-tation in parliament with the importance of this socialmovement. They have a great mobilizing force in As-turias. Some of their proposals, such as the officialdomof the Asturian language, are as the focus of attentionin the public debate. Even recently, the leftist nation-alist party Bloque por Asturies was part of the gov-ernment coalition in Asturias during 20032007 and20082010.

7. Cultural Celtism and marketing!

In addition to political parties, certain cultural eliteshave supported Celtism in recent years. The creation in1981 of the Lliga Celta dAsturies was particularly im-portant. In their magazinestorthey made clear howalmost everything in Asturias was Celtic. They even saidthe Asturian language could be understood as Celt-ic, despite being a Romance language, because it wasin danger of disappearing as did the Celtic languag-es of the British Isles. They also were worried about

historical and archaeological issues. They criticized ar-chaeologists for having abandoned the Celtic para-digm (Lliga Celta dAsturies 1983; Lombarda 1990).

The relay is taken by Conceyu dEstudios Etnogrfi-cos Belenos, with the magazineAsturies, memoria encesadun pas. Since 1996, they have defended the Asturianheritage. At the same time, they have come to endorsethe theory that everything in Asturias is Celtic (lvarezSevilla 2001; lvarez Pea 2002; Llope 2010) (Fig.4).

Music is one of the most important ways in thespread of Celtism. With the resurgence of Folk music

since the 1970s, the term Celtic musichas been acceptedat a popular level. This new label comprises a vague ar-ray of types of traditional music. At the same time, it hasgenerated new musical styles such as Celtic Rock(Elipe1996). Celtic Nightsand Intercelticfestivals began to befrequent in Asturias, consolidating gradually the sup-posed cultural brotherhood with other Celtic coun-tries (Fernndez McClintock 2002) (Fig.5).

Fig. 4: The celtic pig: a vernacular variety ofAsturian pig (from lvarez Sevilla 2004).

Fig. 5: Poster of the 1998 Interceltic Music Festivalof Nava, in Asturias.


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The Festival Interceltique de Lorient (Brittany, France),which began in 1971, has accepted the inclusion ofAsturias as new Celtic country since 1987, thanks tothe pressure of the Conceyu dEstudios EtnogrficosBelenos. One of their components, Lisardo Lombarda,has recently become director of this festival (Llope2010).

Actually, the use of the label celticin Asturian folkmusic is mainly associated with marketing. It is a wayin which a traditional music could be sold worldwideunder a universal category. One of the most impor-

tant features of celtic label nowadays is its economicprofitability. This is one of the factors that have made

the celtic label has quickly been incorporated to eco-nomic sectors such as leisure and tourism (FernndezMcClintock 2002: 438) (Fig.6).

In Spain, the proliferation of historical festivals andrecreations in recent years is an example of the interestof the public in the pre-Roman past (Ruiz Zapatero2006: 20712). We do not like enough the discourseswhich are underlying on these historical recreations,neither those with archaeological advice (such as Kel-tiberoi in Numancia, Soria), nor those that do not (suchas Cantabr ian Warsin Los Corrales de Buelna, Cantab-

ria, or Asturian Wars, in Carabanzo, Asturias) (Fig.7).They develop and perpetuate some historiographical

Fig. 6: Sleeve of the cassette The Celtic Night. Fig. 7: Poster of the 2006 Cantabrian Wars.

Fig. 8: Battle between Romans and astures in the Asturian Wars recreation festival.


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commonplace ideas: past-present essentialism, andro-centrism or naturalization of social conflicts, becausetheir discourse assumes the characteristic features ofCulture-historical archaeology. They understand thepeoples of the Iron Age as ethnic references to present-day regions or nations and they show that the mostoutstanding of these peoples is their heroic struggleagainst the conqueror (Fig.8). They only look at the fi-nal moment of these societies, like homogeneous en-tities. The Iron Age is shown as a uniform and happy

whole, without social conflicts before the conquest.

8. Archaeologists, Celts and Society

In many cases citizens can not participate in the sci-entific discourse because it is unintelligible for them.People tend to accept scientific beliefs from an insti-tutionalized source of knowledge, from the authori-

ties of scientific knowledge (Barnes 1980: 276). As aresult, people begin to tolerate science, replacing thetraditional way of thinking. But along with formal sci-ence is born a popular science that does not acceptthe limits of academic science and meets the needs of

the people, being accommodated to traditional way ofthinking (Handlin 1980: 25960). The Celts are themain characters of this historical popular science inAsturias.

The social sciences are in a paradigmatic situation,because they share their object of study society withother symbolic production professionals such as politi-cians or journalists. As a result, recognition of the mo-nopoly of legitimate discourse about their objects ofstudy is not so easily obtained in the social sciences(Bourdieu 1999a: 79; 1999b: 1145). Therefore, there

are frequent intrusions by non-specialists in generat-ing archaeological popular narratives, which often re-semblefringe archaeology.

Currently, we see a complete disengagement of ar-chaeologists and society, which are supposed to bethe final audience of our work. Since the Celtic para-digm was abandoned in Iron Age, very few archaeolo-gists have dealt that subject in Asturias. The prevailingopinion among them is that new techniques and newexcavations in hillforts will replace the mythical expla-nations, like Celtism, of the Iron Age in Asturias.

Today, many non-specialists try to defend scien-tifically the existence of Celts in Asturian Prehisto-ry (i.e. Lombarda 1990; 2006; Fernndez Gutirrez2001; lvarez Pea 2002; Llope 2010) (Fig.9). Thesepopular Celts are constructed using same argumentsthan archaeological Celts of Francos historiographicalperiod: the ancient texts as authority sources, uncriticalanalogies in space and time, the naturalization of socialinequalities or a positivist objectivism in the study ofthe Past. This generates a strongly essentialist discoursethat exclusively uses the past to justify present realities

and contemporary political agendas.

9. Alternatives

By the first time, the Celtism was used in Asturias bypeople outside the Archaeology and totally disconnect-ed with the archaeological remains of the Iron Age.But, from excavations in Coaa 1940, archaeologists

Fig. 9: Cover of the book Asturias: Celtic Memory, from Bele-nos Fundation.


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were the main instigators of the Celtic explanation ofthe Iron Age. Thus, archaeologists are fully responsi-ble for carrying out the theoretical deconstruction ofCeltism for society (Marn 2005a: 183200).

Historiographical analysis should make us under-stand how archaeological knowledge about the past

has been built, because it is our beginning. If we wantour scientific field to become increasingly autono-mous and less dependent on politics, we must knowwhich concepts have been central to our science inorder to discuss its validity, as John Collis (2003) andGonzalo Ruiz Zapatero (1993) have pointed out.

Celtism is a clear example of a concept that was beencreated with nationalism and has been applied uncrit-ically in the social sciences until a couple of decades.Following J.D. Hill (1989), Celtism involves maintain-ing an essentialist thinking that rests on 19th centu-

ry conceptions, racists and nationalists. We oppose thatbecause it is pernicious at an Epistemological level.Asturian Celtism demonstrates a curious contradic-

tion. Continually there are attempts to demonstrate thespecificity of Asturian culture from prehistory. But, theCeltic Asturian Iron Age is inserted into an amalgam,with other Atlantic countries (lvarez Pea 2002). Inorder to distinguish Asturianess of Spanishness, Astu-

rian past is confused with Irish or Scottish history. In-serting the Asturian Iron Age into a confused CelticEuropean culture means not being able to correctlyanalyze the specificities of its cultural characteristics(Marn 2005b: 327).

Celtism naturalizes hierarchies and perpetuates ra-

cialized and androcentric interpretations. For exam-ple, society is often defined by the features that arethen related to the activities of men, such as war andherding activities. There is also a tendency to over-estimate the study of weapons or jewelry, interpret-ed as symbols of range and masculinity (Fig.10). Thetraditional views of Celtic archaeology are not com-patible with a comprehensive assessment of genderrelations or the application of anthropological egali-tarian models of societies. In addition, Celts are mostlyrecreations made by urban-dwellers who reject other

explanations of the archaeological remains made bysubordinate groups, such as peasants, which are reflect-ed in the traditional folklore (Gazin-Schwartz, Holtorf1999; Gonzlez lvarez 2011). Therefore if our aim isto produce knowledge as objective as possible throughthe theoretical and methodological autonomy of ourscientific field, Celts do not work.

However we aim to be sensitive to the problems of

Fig. 10: Singular combat between two warriors in the Asturian Wars recreation festival.


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society which we belong to and ensure that our sci-entific knowledge reverts to its advancement. Peoplewho currently use Celtism in the self-construction oftheir cultural identity could be understood as the au-thentic Celts. According to Simon James (1999: 76),

ethnicity is a cultural construct that has little to dowith real history, but rather with what people believe.Some current Asturian people consider themselvesand their culture as Celtic. The ethnogenesis of thesemodern Celts did not start two thousand years ago. Itis a process that must be understood in its contem-porary sociological context. Therefore, if we want tobring the Archaeology to Society we cannot ignorethe Celts, since it is the main historical concept whichis handled at popular level. Our first objective mustto be communicating to society the origin and reac-

tionary political connotations in the use of the Celtsthroughout modernity.Archaeologists have a debt to society. We must strive

for Archaeology to also be critical social science. Ifwe care about the archaeological heritage of a re-gion we should care about people who live there andtheir cultural values. People explore for themselves themeanings of the archaeological remains and we mustbe sensitive to this fact. We do not believe in unlimit-ed multivocality, but we think we should at least talkwith the other stakeholders of the past. Multivocality

in itself does not fight the power and authority struc-tures, as Hamilakis (1999) has noted. We must provideto the rest of society with the materials necessary tomodify its relationship with the past, as Hodder (1992)has proposed.

In this sense, exhibitions, publications, conferences,the musealization of archaeological sites or historicalrecreations must help us in the dialogue with society.There, we can share some key issues to rethink the pastin a critical way through our doubts and questions, notthrough closed speeches. They can be a good resource

to promote reflection of society on many social issuesof current interest. That may help others to think his-torically many historical problems, which have existedin the past and continue to exist today. The Iron Age is

the birth of a rural landscape of small villages that stillremains alive in Asturias with few changes, even today.These studies are essential if we want to understand thesubsequent peasant societies which have lived in thisplace until almost our time.

On the other side, the Iron Age in Northern Spainwas neither a social haven nor a scene of constant war-fare, like most of the historical recreations show. Thehillforts were hillforts 800 years before the Romanconquest. These Iron Age communities did not havesuch hierarchical social forms than their southernneighbours of the oppidain Central Iberia. But, therewere other interesting social conflicts to reflect on thepresent-day society. Patriarchy was consolidated in theIron Age, with a new male ideology materialized in theramparts of the hillforts and the warrior assemblage.

Men were occupied on the herding activities whichmoved them away from the dwellings and womenremained there carrying on the maintenance activitieswhich absorbed all of their time inside the ramparts ofthe hillforts. The previous complementarity of func-tions between men and women began to disappear inthe Iron Age.

The Iron Age also shows us how family and com-munity identities may be more important than otheridentities such as ethnicity. In spite of this, historicalrecreations and many archaeologists tend to focus on

ethnic or national concepts, like Astures, Cantabri orCeltic, more related to an urban and contemporary vi-sion of the pre-Roman past. This also omits the archae-ological record and ethnoarchaeological references.

Therefore, the deconstruction of Celtism is not afashionable archaeological trend. It has to be the foun-dation of a critical archaeology in order to overcomethe Culture-histor ical archaeology. We have to assumethe political character of any interpretation of thepast and the present (Falquina, Marn, Rolland 2006).Archaeologists can hope to dialogue with society to

provide it with ways of thinking that allow them tothink about themselves in a more critical way, throughthe denaturing of the traditional ideas about the pastand the present functioning of society.


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