De supuesta toponimia céltica en Castilla: el caso de Arévalo (Ávila)

Abstract

In this way, the aim of this paper is to show the this caution apply an Pre-roman origin is absolutely necessary with a place-name very difficult, Arévalo. Both, its resemblance with the name of the Ancient people arévaco and its location justify a Celtic origin, attributed to this place-name unanimously. This point of view has been proposed by excepcional researchers, but in spite of it we want to make evident that this hypothesis faces up to many difficulties. Contrary to what they thought we make out a Latin-romanic source, starting from one of the Latin names of the 'holly tree', lat. acrifulu. This name could have changed in the Romanic language of this country to Agrebalo o Arévalo. We can find in other Spanish regions many place-names wich reassert this theory: Acétalo (La Rioja), Griébal (Huesca), Agrebalo (Catalonia). This overall view is no without problems, but, in our mind, these inconvénients are less important than in the Celtic theory.