Castros and the Gallaeci

The name Gallaeci comes to us through ancient writers and Roman administration. It covers a world of local communities, not a single nation with the boundaries of modern Galicia. Fortified settlements, metalwork and objects from exchange give archaeologists a more detailed picture of the people who lived across the northwest. Celtic linguistic elements belong to that discussion, alongside regional differences.

Castromao, near Celanova, offers an unusually tangible connection: a bronze tablet records a hospitality agreement between the Coelerni and a Roman officer in AD 132. San Cibrao de Las, in San Amaro and Punxín, shows a large fortified settlement through the transition to Roman rule. These nearby places help us imagine the landscape long before the parish and notarial records that name our families.

Roman inscriptions allow us to move beyond an anonymous ancient landscape. At Castromao, near Celanova, a bronze tablet dated AD 132 names the Coelerni and records their hospitality pact with Gnaeus Antonius Aquilus, prefect of the first cohort of Celtiberians. The agreement extended to both parties’ descendants and was intended for public display. It shows a local community dealing with Roman authority through a formal relationship.

Other ancient names, including the Querquerni of Baixa Limia and the Limici of the Lima basin, describe the wider setting of southern Gallaecia. These communities belonged to the Roman district centred on Braga. Their territories help orient us around Ourense, but the later villages of our family archive cannot simply be assigned to one ancient people.

Place names preserve several layers of language. Castrelo belongs to the Latin family of castrum and castellum, words for fortified places. A name associated with a fort is not, by itself, a Celtic word or proof that the same population has lived there without interruption.

The castros around Ourense and the Ribeiro offer archaeological evidence of settlement. San Cibrao de Las spans San Amaro and Punxín; Castromao is near Celanova. Their location helps readers place ancient communities beside the later villages of our archive, without treating modern municipal boundaries as ancient tribal frontiers.

A castro was a settlement, not merely a military fortress. Houses, hearths, storage areas and working spaces lay within walls and ditches. Elevated sites offered visibility over routes and farmland, while their inhabitants depended on the surrounding fields and pastures. Circular buildings are familiar, but excavated settlements also contain other plans and phases of rebuilding.

The Miño valley offers nearby examples at Santa Lucía in Astariz and around Castrelo de Miño. Castro de Trelle, in the Toén and Barbadás area, is another important neighbour of Cartelle. The Xunta’s account of the 2025 campaign describes excavation continuing the 2024 test trenches. Its growing archaeological record lets us investigate buildings and defences without turning an early excavation into a complete reconstruction of the settlement.

At Santa Lucía in Astariz, excavated buildings and a rock-cut wine press connect the castro landscape with Roman-period farming. The excavation team’s 2024 study places construction of the press in the late first century AD, with secure use in the second century and possible continuation into the third. Pressing ended in the late third or early fourth century, while occupation continued into late antiquity. This sequence matters because one place can preserve several different histories.

Nearby San Cibrao de Las, between San Amaro and Punxín, is a large fortified settlement with walls, streets and domestic enclosures. Castromao contributes the AD 132 tablet, and Santomé near Ourense preserves both castro and Roman-period occupation. Read together, these sites reveal changing ways of living rather than a single unaltered ancient society.

Stone altars give us some of the clearest evidence for ancient religious life around Ourense. Dedications preserve indigenous divine names within the Latin language and forms of Roman worship. At As Burgas, inscriptions to Revve Anabaraego and the Nymphs connect the hot springs with offerings and religious practice. These are identifiable traces of worship, rather than a religion reconstructed from modern folklore.

A spring could be useful, restorative and sacred at the same time. The archaeological setting helps us understand why water mattered to the people who settled here. Later stories about holy wells, oak groves or saints belong to the region’s cultural history too, but each needs its own dated evidence before it can be linked to an ancient cult.

Traditional music gives the Galician landscape a voice. Bagpipes, tambourines, hurdy-gurdies and drums accompany songs and dances such as the muiñeira. The Museo do Pobo Galego presents these instruments alongside later additions, including the accordion and fiddle. Its collections show traditions being learned, adapted and passed between generations.

The museum’s oral archive adds places, dates and named informants to that story. These recordings can bring us closer to the world of recent family generations, while archaeology explains the much earlier castros. Modern Celtic festivals and Atlantic cultural exchange express regional identity; tracing a particular song or custom requires its own history rather than assuming an unchanged survival from the Iron Age.