Portugal

Abstract

Western Iberia was inhabited from 8000 BC by Neolithic peoples known as Iberians; Celtic tribes arrived in the north and west in the first millennium BC. Phoenicians colonized the southwest around Cádiz from around 800 BC. After the expulsion of Carthage from Spain in 206 BC, Roman power extended throughout the peninsula. The Lusitani, possibly a Celtic federation, were defeated in 139 BC. From AD 409, with the Roman Empire in decline, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by Germanic tribes from central Europe, including the Suevi and Visigoths, who established Christian kingdoms. Following the arrival of Muslim armies in Iberia in 711, the southern part of what is now Portugal became part of the Muslim dominion of al-Andalus. The northern and western fringes of Iberia remained largely agrarian, poor and Christian.