Prehistory and Antiquity: from Palaeolithic groups to Roman Hispania
This domain tests the sequence of prehistoric cultures in the Iberian Peninsula, the Iron Age peoples, colonial contacts and the Roman conquest and Romanisation of Hispania. The exam often asks you to date a culture, identify its material traces or explain how Roman rule changed indigenous society, sometimes from a map or a short source.
Chronology and cultures
- Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: hunter-gatherers, stone tools and fire; in the Valencian area, sites such as Cova Negra (Xàtiva) document Middle Palaeolithic occupation.
- Upper Palaeolithic: Cova del Parpalló (Gandia) is key for portable art on plaquettes and for evidence of hunting groups.
- Neolithic: Cardial pottery, agriculture and livestock; Cova de l'Or (Beniarrés) is a reference site for the Cardial Neolithic in the region.
- Iberians: Iron Age oppida and warrior societies; La Bastida de les Alcusses (Moixent) and Tossal de Sant Miquel (Llíria) are essential Valencian examples. They used Iberian scripts and maintained contacts with Greeks and Carthaginians.
- Celts and Celtiberians: associated above all with the Meseta and the interior, not with the coastal Iberian world.
- Colonisers: Phoenicians (Gadir, early first millennium BC), Greeks (Emporion) and Carthaginians, who founded Carthago Nova in 227 BC and fought Rome in the Second Punic War.
- Roman Hispania: Roman landing at Emporion in 218 BC, provinces in 197 BC, foundation of Valentia in 138 BC, Via Augusta, municipalisation and the grant of universal citizenship in AD 212.
Worked example
A source states that in 138 BC a Roman commander settled veterans at Valentia. To comment on it, first classify the fact: a Republican urban foundation during the Lusitanian and Celtiberian wars. Then explain the motive: securing the route along the coast and controlling the hinterland. Finally assess significance: Valentia was not merely a camp but a planned city that became a lasting Roman urban centre. The reasoning must link date, context and consequence, not just translate the text.
Traps that cost marks
- Mixing Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers with Neolithic farmers.
- Treating Iberians as Celts or assuming a single unified Iberian state.
- Confusing Phoenician Gadir with Carthaginian Carthago Nova.
- Claiming Rome founded Saguntum: it was an Iberian town with Greek and Carthaginian contacts.
- Writing BC dates as if they ran in the same direction as AD dates.