Gipuzkoa before it was Gipuzkoa: Iron Age Castros

Before the arrival of the Romans, the territory of Gipuzkoa was inhabited by several tribes. They had a complex, hierarchical society; they were familiar with mining, navigation, metallurgy, long-distance trade, pottery, the construction of buildings and walled villages, etc.

Eight walled villages, so-called castros or forts, are to be found in the hinterland of Gipuzkoa. Inside them, they built houses of some 60 m²(645 sq feet), with separate spaces for people, animals and storage. To this end they used a variety of materials either building close to sources of water, such as rivers and springs, or else collecting rainwater. This leads us to believe that they had reached a certain level of comfort.

Archaeological investigations of the last 20 years reveal that this castro culture coexisted with another nomadic culture devoted to pasturage, which expressed itself through stone circles and cromlechs of a funerary nature.