Quote Originally Posted by gixajo View Post


According to Estrabón Turdetanians, (considered as Thartessian culture heirs ):





Strabo, Geography, book 3, chapter 1, section 6.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...trabo/3A*.html
Some interesting info about Lusitanians:


The origin of the Lusitanians

"When people think about Lusitania, they usually think about the Iberian Roman province with this name, which comprised modern Portugal’s territory (except for the area above the river Douro) and Spanish Extremadura. This is perhaps the main reason for all the misconceptions about the Lusitanians one hears from most people.

The ethnic Lusitanians, in fact, occupied a territory comprised by today’s Northern Portugal down until the Tagus river (possibly some more territory South of this river as well) and a small part of Spain’s Extremadura. The region in Portugal we know today as Alentejo was inhabited by the Celtici, and what is today Algarve was inhabited by the Conii.

The Vettones and the Gallaecians were neighbouring tribes closely related to the Lusitanians in genetic, linguistic, cultural, traditional and religious terms. The Gallaecians occupied today’s Northern Portugal and the province of Galicia, while the Vettones occupied most of Spain’s Extremadura.

With this said, the Lusitanians, the Gallaecians, the Celtici and, to some extent, the Conii, made the bedrock of the modern Portuguese and Galician peoples’ Indo-European heritage.

The Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by the native Iberians long before the first Indo-European arrivals. Prior to that, the tribes mentioned above did not exist yet. Iberia in particular has many evidence of Pre Indo-European populations and culture, with megalithic sites being present all over the Peninsula, specially in what is today Portugal.


The Lusitanian language

There is no consensus on the etymology of the word “Lusitanian”. This tribe was most likely named by the Romans themselves. Pliny the Elder suggests a relation with “Lusos”[2], a son or companion of Bacchus. Other scholars have suggested a possible root in the Latin word lux and, ultimately, Proto-Indo-European *lewk-, meaning “light”, thus “Lusitania” possibly meaning “Land of the Light”. Gouveia[3] suggested a comparison with Anatolian luth, meaning “light stone” and ythania, meaning “land of the river of heaven”.

As mentioned before, these people spoke the Lusitanian language. Unfortunately, very few evidence of it survived to this day. Any Pre-Roman proof of a written Lusitanian language (if there was one) is lost and only inscriptions using the Latin alphabet remain. Categorizing this language has also proven to be quite difficult, but Lusitanian is usually described as a Pre-Celtic language put under the Indo-European family with its own category (Lusitanian). It’s worth noting, however, that it has many Celtic and Proto-Celtic derived words.

A recent effort from the University of Coimbra[3] analysed toponyms of ancient Lusitania with the goal of determining their etymological roots. One of its main flaws is that it considered Post-Roman toponyms, thus increasing significantly the amount of Latin derived words. In any case, these were the results."

Pre-Indo-European (3 toponyms = 2% of total)
Indo-European, undifferentiated (56 toponyms = 33.5%)
Celtic (50 toponyms = 30%)
Iberian (Non-Indo-European) (2 toponyms = 1%)
Latin (30 toponyms = 18%)
Uncertain (26 toponyms = 15.5%)