Lusitanians in the context of Portugal

The Celts (/kɛlts/ KELTS, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples (/ˈkɛltɪk/ KEL-tik) were a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons, Picts, and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii; and the Galatians. The interrelationships of ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world are unclear and debated; for example over the ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group.

The history of pre-Celtic Europe and Celtic origins is debated. The traditional "Celtic from the East" theory, says the proto-Celtic language arose in the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, named after grave sites in southern Germany, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links the Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it (c. 1200–500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria, and with the following La Tène culture (c. 450 BC onward), named after the La Tène site in Switzerland. It proposes that Celtic culture spread westward and southward from these areas by diffusion or migration. A newer theory, "Celtic from the West", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward. Another newer theory, "Celtic from the Centre", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions. After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia, Turkey.

The Iberians (Latin: Hibērī, from Greek: Ἴβηρες, Iberes) were an ancient people indigenous to the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. They are described in Greek and Roman sources (among others, by Hecataeus of Miletus, Avienius, Herodotus and Strabo). Roman sources also use the term Hispani to refer to the Iberians.

The term Iberian, as used by the ancient authors, had two distinct meanings. One, more general, referred to all the populations of the Iberian peninsula without regard to ethnic differences (Pre-Indo-European, Celts and non-Celtic Indo-Europeans). The other, more restricted ethnic sense and the one dealt with in this article, refers to the people living in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, which by the 6th century BC had absorbed cultural influences from the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and the Greeks. This pre-Indo-European cultural group spoke the Iberian language from the 7th to at least the 1st century BC. The rest of the peninsula, in the northern, central, and northwestern areas, was inhabited by Vascones, Celts or Celtiberians groups and the possibly Pre-Celtic or Proto-Celtic Indo-European Lusitanians, Vettones, and Turdetani.

This is a list of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes.

Lusitania (/ˌluːsɪˈteɪniə/; Classical Latin: [luːsiːˈtaːnia]) was an ancient Iberian Roman province encompassing most of modern-day Portugal (south of the Douro River) and a large portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and Province of Salamanca). Romans named the region after the Lusitanians, an Indo-European tribe inhabiting the lands.

The capital Emerita Augusta was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior before becoming a province of its own during the Roman Empire.

The culture of Portugal designates the cultural practices and traditions of the Portuguese people. It is rooted on the interactions between many different civilizations that inhabited the area during the past millennia. From prehistoric cultures, to its Pre-Roman civilizations (such as the Lusitanians, the Gallaeci, the Celtici, and the Cynetes, amongst others), passing through its contacts with the Phoenician-Carthaginian world, the Roman period (see Hispania, Lusitania and Gallaecia), the Germanic invasions of the Suebi, Buri (see Kingdom of the Suebi) and Visigoths (see Visigothic Kingdom), Viking incursions, Sephardic Jewish settlement, and finally, the Moorish Umayyad invasion of Hispania and the subsequent expulsion during the Reconquista, all have influenced the country's culture and history.

The name of Portugal itself reveals much of the country's early history, stemming from the Roman name Portus Cale, a Latin name meaning "Port of Cale" (Cale likely is a word of Celtic origin - Cailleach-Bheur her other name; the Mother goddess of the Celtic people as in Calais, Caledonia, Beira. She was the one who, with a hammer created mountains and valleys; the one who hid in stones and trees - Mother nature), later transformed into Portucale, and finally into Portugal, which emerged as a county of the Kingdom of León (see County of Portugal) and became an independent kingdom in 1139. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal was a major economic, political, and cultural power, its global empire stretching from the Americas, to Africa, and various regions of Asia and Oceania.

The Numantine War (from Bellum Numantinum in Appian's Roman History) was the last conflict of the Celtiberian Wars fought by the Romans to subdue those people along the Ebro, in what is now Spain. It was a twenty-year conflict between the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania Citerior and the Roman government. It began in 154 BC as a revolt of the Celtiberians of Numantia on the Douro. The first phase of the war ended in 151, but in 143, war flared up again with a new insurrection in Numantia.

The first war was fought contemporaneously with the Lusitanian War in Hispania Ulterior. The Lusitanians were subdued by Sulpicius Galba, who betrayed their surrender and executed their leading men, and the Arevaci of Hispania Citerior continued the war and allied with the Lusitanian leader Viriathus.

Lusitanian (so named after the Lusitani or Lusitanians) was an Indo-European Paleohispanic language. There has been support for either a connection with the ancient Italic languages or Celtic languages. It is known from only six sizeable inscriptions, dated to roughly the first century AD, and numerous names of places (toponyms) and of gods (theonyms). The language was spoken in the territory inhabited by Lusitanian tribes, between the Douro and Tagus rivers, territory that today falls in central Portugal and western Spain.

Lusitania (/ˌluː.sɪ.ˈteɪ.ni.ə/; Classical Latin: [luːsiːˈtaːnia]) was an ancient Roman province encompassing most of modern-day Portugal (south of the Douro River) and a large portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and Province of Salamanca). Romans named the region after the Lusitanians, an Indo-European tribe inhabiting the lands.

The capital Emerita Augusta was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior before becoming a province of its own during the Roman Empire.

Viseu, officially the City of Viseu, is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal and the capital of the district of the same name, with a population of 103,502 inhabitants in the entire municipality, and center of the Viseu Dão Lafões intermunicipal community, with 267,633 inhabitants.

Settled during the period of the early Iberian Castro culture, the territory of Viseu was occupied by a series of other peoples including the Romans, Suebians, Visigoths and Moors. During the Roman occupation of Iberia, Viriathus, the rebel leader of the Lusitanians, is assumed to have lived for a time in the vicinity. During the Middle Ages, the city often served as a seat for Visigothic nobles (such as King Roderic), and based in the Chronica Gothorum is one of several probable birthplaces for Afonso Henriques, first King of Portugal.