Citânia de Briteiros

The Citânia de Briteiros is an archaeological site of the Castro culture located in the civil parish of Briteiros São Salvador e Briteiros Santa Leocádia in the municipality of Guimarães; important for its size, "urban" form and developed architecture, it is one of the more excavated sites in northwestern Iberian Peninsula. Although primarily known as the remains of an Iron Age proto-urban hill fort (or oppidum), the excavations at the site have revealed evidence of sequential settlement, extending from the Bronze to Middle Ages.HistoryThe site was probably constructed between the first and second century BCE. Notes by Martins Sarmento and from recent explorations show that the Monte de São Romão was a favoured location for rock art engravings of the Atlantic Bronze Age, in the beginning of the first millennium BCE; it is not known when or why this first group left. Numerous early engraved rock surfaces were destroyed when many boulders were cut to build the ramparts and family compounds as the Castro settlement grew. Little is known of the beginnings of the Castro occupation, as no structures from the late Bronze Age have been found. Pottery from the early Iron Age has been found, when the settlement would already have been fortified. The majority of the ruins visible today have been dated from the second Iron Age, especially the last two centuries BCE.