Arevaci

The Arevaci or Aravaci (Arevakos, Arvatkos or Areukas in the Greek sources), were a Celtic people who settled in the Meseta Central of northern Hispania and which dominated most of Celtiberia from the 4th to late 2nd centuries BC. The Vaccaei were their allies.

The Arevaci were of Celtic origin and part of the Celtiberians. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that the ancestors of the Celtiberian groups were installed in the Meseta area of the Iberian peninsula from at least 1000 BC and probably much earlier. Some think their ancestors were early ‘Q-Celtic’ speakers from Gaul who migrated to the peninsula around the mid-6th century BC, arriving at about the same time as the powerful Vaccaei people of the western meseta. This led some modern historians to state that the Arevaci were actually an off-shot of the latter, thus their tribal name which means ‘Are-Vaccei’ or ‘eastern’ Vacceians. However, an alternative etymology is given by the Roman geographer Pliny the elder who calls them Celtiberi Arevaci, adding that they borrowed their name from the river Areva (Araviana) and thus their designation could be translated as ‘those who dwell at the Areva’ or ‘on the Areva’.

The nucleus of the Arevaci homeland was centered on the modern provinces of Soria and most of Guadalajara up to the Tagus sources, extending to the eastern half of Segovia and the southeastern Burgos, but for a while they dominated parts of neighbouring Zaragoza province. They founded or seized several important city-states (Civitates) in northern Celtiberia, namely Clunia (either Alto del Cuerno or Coruña del Conde – Burgos; Celtiberian mint: Kolounioku), Voluce/Veluka (around Calatañazor – Soria), Uxama Argelae (Cerro de Castro, near Osma – Soria; Celtiberian mints: Arcailicos/Uzamuz), Termantia (Montejo de Tiermes – Soria) also named Termes or Termesos,Savia (Soria?) and Numantia (Muela de Garray – Soria). Other towns often mentioned in the sources, such as Segovia, Ocilis, Comfluenta, Tucris, Lutia, Mallia, Lagni and Colenda have not yet been located.

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