ABSTRACT
Iron Age religions are usually defined as warlike due to lasting Celtic stereotypes in our discursive field. On the basis of such identification, these religions are thought to legitimate or even prove the existence of political stratification all over proto-historical Europe. Considering the presentist and evolutionist prejudices inherent to the assumption that Iron Age societies had to be hierarchical, it is necessary to challenge such understanding of Iron Age religions.
The centrality of war on pre-Roman rituals and beliefs, and its assimilation with violence and social coercion, need to be deconstructed. In this task, castro culture is a useful case of study due to the conceptualisation of its religion as Celtic, opposed to the main characteristics of the north-western Iberian archaeological record. The absence of social or territorial hierarchisation, in combination with the lack of interest regarding war until the time of the contact with Rome, will let us examine the religious configuration of non-triangular Iron Age societies, their particular forms of violence, and how they were transformed by the apparition of social hierarchies.
