https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6961-1449
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ABSTRACT
Protohistoric place names, created before written history and related to extinct languages, are analysed in this article. Our case study deals with place names of current towns (over 20,000 inhabitants) in the Spanish region of València. Linguistics is needed when dealing with the origin of an opaque protohistoric place name, but observation of landscape features is crucial when finding or choosing the most plausible origin of a place name if there is more than one theory. Protohistoric names are thus interpreted in this article from two perspectives: landscape feature observation and philology. This multimethod analysis produces more reliable results. The main results reveal that protohistoric town names in our case study derive from natural features of landscape, while historic town names refer mainly to cultural features of landscape. Place names are one of the most valuable sources available to explain the concerns of protohistoric peoples.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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Notes on contributors
Joan Carles Membrado-Tena
Joan Carles Membrado-Tena is an Associate Professor at Department of Geography in Universitat de València. He is a specialist in place names (toponymy), maps and GIS, landscape, territorial organisation, economic geography, Mediterranean vegetable gardens, industrial clusters, rural areas, and lifestyle migration. He worked for ten years at the Institut Cartogràfic Valencià (Cartographic Institute of València). He currently teaches the courses ‘Geography and the Environment in Africa’ and ‘Geography of the Land of València’ for the undergraduate Geography degree, ‘Heritage Typologies: Landscape and Heritage’ for the MA in Cultural Heritage: Identification, Analysis and Management, and ‘Modelling and GIS Techniques’ for the MA in Environmental and Territory Management Techniques.