De la Idolatría en el Occidente Peninsular Prerromano*

Abstract

In the last fifteen years, a linguistic interpretation of the indo-european pre-roman religions from the Iberian Peninsula has been developed. This paper, focused on a recent book (M.B. Prósper, Lenguas y religiones del occidente de la Península Ibérica, Salamanca, 2002) which summarizes this hypothesis, is a critical review of these arguments. Our work criticizes its three basic methodological foundations: its consideration of these religions as idolatric cults, its implicit XIX Century evolutionist character and its evident anti-dumezilianism. We propose to integrate the linguistic analysis, together with others from different disciplines, into the History of Religions as a way to construct hypothesis on the religion of these societies.