Until recently, research on textiles and textile production in Southern Portugal during the Iron Age and the Early Roman Period was limited. Different factors contributed, to differing degrees, to this situation. On the one hand, textiles never developed as a full-fledged topic of interest in Portuguese archaeological, perhaps due to a lack of any work capable of playing a role comparable to that of Carmen Alfaro's seminal volume in neighboring Spain. On the other hand, a persistent lack of preserved textiles identified and excavated in archaeological contexts seemed to somehow justify the lack of investment made in the analysis, albeit indirect, of this major component of the past material worlds.

Data for such an analysis are not, however, entirely absent from the Southern Portuguese archaeological record. A substantial number of textile tools have in fact been recorded and reported, even if incompletely at times, in more general excavation reports and assemblage studies. These, however, deserved very little attention, and until recently no effort at systematization had been undertaken. In the framework of COST Action EuroWeb (CA19131), efforts were undertaken to overcome this situation. Currently, textile tools (mostly spindle whorls and, to a less extent, loom weights) from more than 40 Iron Age sites (7th to 2nd centuries BCE) and more than 20 Early Roman sites (2nd to 1st centuries BCE) have been recorded and inventoried.

Although not all these assemblages have been studied with the desirable detail, they form a useful basis to discuss a range of issues, such as: a) the chrono-typological seriation of this material, and the possible functional and technological factors underlying its variability; b) the geographic, spatial, and contextual patterns of textile production, as an indicator of the scale and modes of organization of said production, and consequently its economic significance; c) shifts in production practices, techniques and modalities, which may be correlated to wider historical phenomena affecting this region.

On the other hand, following the example of other European areas in which studied of ancient textile production are more developed, a broader chaîne opératoire approach to textile production can be deployed. This allows to incorporate other, so far underexplored, sources, namely the archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological evidence related to fibre production, to explore the types of resources being exploited for textile production. For Southern Portugal, botanical evidence is scarce; existing studies of faunal assemblages, however, and while mainly focusing on the dietary uses of animals, offer interesting insights into the importance of wool production, at least during the Iron Age.

Other sources still – such as dress complements (mostly brooches and belt buckles), but also some scarce iconographic material on potential textile patterns and garment types – can offer further insights into the end uses of textiles. These, however, remain underexplored, although a roadmap for future research can now be outlined.