Sacrifice, Circunvalation and Ordeal in Celtic Iberia: a longue durée approach to the rituality of Space and Time

Abstract

The present article analyses, with a ethnoarchaeological and ethnohistorical point of view, the existence in Celtic Iberia and Europe of rituals of delimitation and protection of the space, from the domestic to the communal sphere, characterized by concrete ritual practices like sacrifices, ritual hoards, circunvalatory ceremonies or ordeal combats, the main participants of which were animals. Rituals that would also be subject to specific cyclic patterns. Evidences of this kind of rites and beliefs in Medieval and Modern Age as well as in current ethnographic survey in Europe and the Iberian Peninsula characterized these as longue durée phenomena that allow to consider new comparative interpretations in archaeological contexts of the Late Protohistory.

Keywords:
Sacrifice; Foundation; Territory; Liminarity; Oxen fight; Circumambulation.