Continuity and evolution of the funerary spaces in the Galician coast form Late Antiquity to the Early Medieval period

Abstract

The coast of Galicia (Spain) gathers a number of funerary spaces whose study revealed the continuous use of some cemeteries, from the Roman and Late- Roman period, after the 5^th century A.D. Those cemeteries, irregularly distributed along the coastline of the north-western region of the Iberian Peninsula, show continuous or intermittent use of the space at least to the 7^th century A.D., with some specific cases that continue after the first centuries of the Early Middle Ages. Although it is a small and heterogeneous group, the study proved the survival of some customs, as well as the evolution and loss of some practices, revealing the changes suffered by those spaces along the time. This paper submits the results obtained from the study of those cemeteries, analysing if the changes in the funerary customs were gradual, as suggested by the guidelines and prohibitions gathered in the ecclesiastical councils from the 6th-7th centuries; or an abrupt change, associated perhaps to the arrival of new believes or foreign populations.