It’s not that long ago, the Iron Age. Humans are among the youngest species on the planet. Aside from some butterflies, goatsbeard plants, and domesticated animals and plants, we are the youngest species walking (or crawling) the Earth. And so, even our history is new. Take a look at this replica of a stone house from 300-100 BCE. If you take away our technology and electricity, they had everything we have and probably had much better food! And they could brew beer.

 

The harbor of Vigo, Spain is a handsome piece of water and was used to film part of the movie “Das Boot.” The Castro of Vigo, occupying the substantial hill to the southeast of the harbor, was pretty much destroyed by military men of a much later period who had guns with an artillery range to cover the harbor, and those dastardly Brits might be coming any day! The ruins of the stone village were torn apart to build the fort which covers the top of the hill today. Yet, what is left of the old Castro village is extremely informative. 

 

In the municipal park now encompassing the fort and remnants of the Castro, the city rebuilt an Iron Age family complex on the site of a few ruins still extant and put it together as a museum. The main dwelling was round, as were all Castro homes before the arrival of the Romans. Entering, in one vestibule, I saw a large wooden box full of flour, probably flour from pounded acorns. Here too were wheels of cheese and amphoras for fresh water, or oil, or wine, or salted fish. Hanging here are winnowing baskets and other kitchen and harvesting tools. Amphoras were not common until the Romanization of this culture by the Romans. (More on that next week.) In the other part of the entryway, is a fireplace with iron pots - sort of a summer kitchen. 

 

This restoration had a small window which could be closed from the inside with a wooden shutter. There was a loft over half of the living space and a wooden ladder to get up to it. There is an inside hearth, as well as the summer kitchen in the vestibule, and this fireplace has a crane and iron pots and cooking utensils. What is a little disturbing to a modern-day stone mason, such as yours truly, is that the fireplace has no chimney. That means all the smoke from the fire remains in the room until it slowly seeps out the reed roof, or the front door, or the little side window. The fact is most of the civilized world lived without chimneys in the house and suffered from this sort of particulate pollution as a part of daily life until the 11th century. Some cultures had a hole in the roof, but there is no evidence the Castro community thought too much about it. A wooden plank table (everyone wants one of those!), a picnic table bench, a stack of firewood, and a fishing net with small weight stones woven into the fringe was hanging near the fire to dry. Copper pots. (Remember, the Bronze Age came before the Iron Age, so these people had pots of both materials.)

 

Other buildings in the compound were granaries or were used as workstations. One building in the Vigo restoration was rectangular, which means the original was built after the arrival of the Romans. Forges, weaving looms, pottery were activities contained within these individual family compounds. 

 

The hardest part of their day may have been climbing back up to the Castro with the catch of the day from the sea, or maybe it was nothing to them, fit as fiddle from their daily routines, and it only seems a hard task for me, an aging, over-weight, winded tourist with books in his hand and a smart phone in his pocket running on a partially charged battery.

 

Although the Castros were walled, a protective structure with individual family compounds inside the main wall, there is little evidence of warring parties across this area of Iberian Peninsula settlement, Castro to Castro. That means these people may have lived a relatively peaceful life for generation upon generation without outside hostile intervention. Something to think about. Fresh fish, beer, acorn bread, plank table, goat, no sugar, no tobacco. Come on, was life good?