Iron Age

The Iron Age Castro de Cossourado is situated in the middle of the modern day village of Forte da Cidade. It is part of Paredes de Coura region, on Salgosa mountain range, on the north side of the river Coura, dominating a large open area. This used to be an important north-south corridor between the Douro and Minho regions.

The Castro de S. Lourenço in the district of Esposende is part of a series of hill forts which controlled the region’s coastal shipping route. The site gives a great panoramic view and control over both the coastal area and the estuary of the Cávado river.

Paços de Ferreira is situated in the Entre Douro and Minho region, in the Ave Valley area, the heartland of the Castro Culture (Cultura Castreja in Portuguese, Cultura Castreña in Spanish). The walled villages and hill forts dating to the late Bronze Age and Iron Age, the castros, citânias or cividades in this area are larger than elsewhere.

Klein Köris is situated in a lovely landscape with widespread forests, chains of lakes, bordering with a nature park & reserve. Between the mid 1970s and mid 1990s a Germanic settlement dating to the 100 - 500 AD was excavated “Klein Köris number 3".

Rosala has both an indoor and an outdoor museum area. Illustrating how Viking Age life around the Kyrksundet (the sound between Hitis and Rosala) must have been like. Information for the reconstructed houses came from an excavation about 5 kilometres down the road.

When in the 1980s the A44 near Düsseldorf was extended, traces of an Iron Age settlement of about 500 BC were found by archaeologist Dr. Ralf Lommerzheim. October 2000, just a few hundred metres away from the original site, the reconstruction of the settlement was officially started by Wolfgang Diedrich, mayor of nearby Ratingen and protector of the project.

In the 1960s, in the then outskirts of Stavanger, large excavations revealed a settlement of the 4th – 6th century, in Norway called Iron Age or better said “Migration Period”. Soon after, it was decided to build here a farm complex the way it could have been like back then.

At Landa, In the 1980s and 90s, over 250 houses were excavated in one of the largest excavation campaigns of Norway. This area was in extensive use from Bronze Age well into the Viking Age. The project "Fortidslandsbyen Landa på Forsand" has three reconstructed houses.

At the far southwest of England lies Cornwall. One of its fishing ports is Penzance. In the area near Penzance lies Bodrifty Farm, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the English Channel on the other. In the 1950s, 8 Iron Age roundhouses were excavated in this enclosed moorland, within a low enclosing bank.

The French-German border cuts straight through a complex of archaeological sites, most of which date to the Iron Age & Roman Era. A perfect occasion to explain that our present borders are in our minds, not in reality. Archaeologist Jean Schaub founded the European Culture park at both sides of the border – in France at Bliesbruck, in Germany at Gersheim-Reinheim.