Universidade de Brasília – UnB Depto. de Línguas Estrangeiras – LET No. de Identificação da Disciplina: 146129

Instituto de Letras – IL Professor: Dr. João Sedycias História da Língua Espanhola

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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

History of Spain –

Pre-Roman Spain

Prehistory

The oldest human fossils in Spain belong to Homo sapiens, more specifically, an early form of Neanderthal and precursor of modern humans. Bones of several individuals in the Cueva Mayor ("Main Cave" at Atapuerca, Burgos) come from Middle Pleistocene sediments that are at least 280,000 years old. Other important sites were at Torralba and Ambrona (Soria), where elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) had been trapped accidentally in marshy ground, and their remains scavenged. From these sites were excavated shouldered points fashioned from young elephant tusks, as well as hundreds of stone implements (hand axes, cleavers, and scrapers on flakes, made from chalcedony, quartzite, quartz, and even limestone) and wooden objects. Pieces of charcoal show that fire was known and used. But humans were already living in Spain in the Early Pleistocene, as proved by stone tools from beaches in the Algarve (Mirouço), Huelva (Punta Umbria), and Cadiz (Algeciras) and the terraces of the lower Guadalquivir, Tagus, Manzanares, and Ter rivers. Choppers, angular balls, and flakes from the terraces of the Jabalón River (Ciudad Real) are older than 700,000 years and perhaps more than 1,000,000 years.

Human fossils of Neanderthals were found at Bañolas (Gerona) and Cova Negra (Valencia). Fully developed Neanderthals, some represented by well-preserved skulls, come from more than 10 different localities throughout Spain, including Los Casares, Carigüela, Gabasa, and Zafarraya, with a cluster in Gibraltar (Forbe's Quarry, Gorham's Cave, and La Genista).

The appearance of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) in Spain after 35,000 BC opened a new era, when material culture acquired an innovating velocity it never lost. Flint tools became more varied and smaller, and bone and antler were used for harpoons, spears, and ornaments. Needles from the Cueva de Pendo (Cantabria) hint at sewn clothing of furs and skins. Most remarkable were the intellectual achievements, culminating in the Paleolithic caves found in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain. These caves were painted, engraved, and sculpted and visited intermittently between 25,000 and 10,000 BC. On the walls and ceilings are images of cold-weather animals that are now extinct, such as bison, mammoth, Przewalski's horse, wild auroch, and woolly rhinoceros. Predators such as bear, glutton, and lion are rarely represented, and depictions of humans are extremely scarce. Many caves (El Castillo, Cantabria) show rows of coloured dots, arrowlike marks, negative impressions of human hands, and signs interpreted as vulvas. Animals may be drawn skillfully in black outlines, like the horses at Ekain (Guipúzcoa), or painted in polychrome, as at Altamira (Cantabria), and in bichrome, as at Tito Bustillo (Asturias). These are scenes and standard compositions, but figures are also drawn singly (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria), engraved repeatedly, or drawn on top of other representations. Although the main food animals hunted were red deer, ibex (mountain goat), and reindeer, the most common depictions were of aurochs, bison, and horses. Salmon, a seasonal food, was rarely drawn, and plants never appear. Similar themes occur on portable objects made of bone and antlers and on stone plaques. At the habitation site of the cave of Parpalló (Valencia), thousands of engraved stone plaques had accumulated; although their interpretation is difficult, it should be stressed that Paleolithic art follows conventions, formally placing figures within selected caves (probably sanctuaries), with meanings hidden from modern eyes. Paleolithic visitors left stone lamps and pine firebrands as well as footprints and hand marks on muddy surfaces in the French caves of Fontanet, Isturitz (Haristoi), and Lascaux. The complexity of the Paleolithic mental universe is demonstrated from the mortuary practice in two graves in the Cueva Morín (Cantabria), where four mutilated burials survived as casts, formed by a compact, greasy sediment that had replaced the bodies. The dead were accompanied by meat offerings and ochre and buried below low mounds, on top of which ritual fires burned.

After 10,000 BC the climatic changes accompanying the end of the last glaciation led to the disappearance of cold-tolerant game and the flooding of their grazing lands near the coasts. Hunters responded by widening their range of food and collecting quantities of marine shellfish. Such adaptations can be seen in caves as far apart as Santimamiñe (Guipúzcoa), Costalena (Saragossa), and Dos Aguas (Valencia). More than 7,500 figures painted by these hunters and gatherers are known from all over the eastern and southern peninsula, dating from 7000 to 3500 BC and giving tantalizing glimpses of their society. Located in the open air, usually beneath rock overhangs or in protecting hollows, are animated representations of people dancing (two women in voluminous skirts at Dos Aguas and three women in skirts and two nude ithyphallic men at the Barranco del Pajarejo, Albarracín), fighting, robbing honey, stalking red deer, and hunting wild goat. Some scenes are constructed around a narrative. The Cueva Remigia and the series of 10 cavities with outstanding paintings at the Cingle de La Gasulla (Castellón) next to it show scenes of remarkable activities; in cavity IX two matched groups of archers, led by a man sporting a headdress, are engaged in hand-to-hand combat, while nearby in the rock shelter of Les Dogues another combat pits two bands of archers rhythmically against each other at close range. Bees are depicted more than 200 times, often near hives, and in cavity IV of the Cingle de la Ermita del Barranc Fondo (Valltorta, Castellón) a scene shows a long fibre ladder with men climbing it to reach a hive defended by oversized bees. Other well-preserved groups of paintings are found at Minateda and Alpera (Albacete) and around Bicorp (Valencia).

The craft of pottery making and the cultivation of domestic cereals and livestock that characterize the Neolithic economy in Europe reached Spain from the central Mediterranean, and perhaps from northwestern Africa, after 6000 BC. Although agriculture and husbandry were known early in eastern and southern Spain, they were assimilated extremely slowly and irregularly. Caves and sites conveniently located for hunting, like those around Montserrat (Barcelona) and at La Sarsa (Valencia) and Carigüela (Granada), were still preferred, and people lived in extended families or small bands. A different pattern prevailed in southwestern Spain and Portugal, where the advent of the Neolithic Period came later, between 4500 and 3800 BC. By 4000 BC the first big collective tombs were built from boulders, and by 3500 BC funerary monuments were prominent in the landscapes of Alentejo (Portugal), Extremadura, and the Atlantic littoral. Veritable megalithic cemeteries arose around Pavia and Reguengos de Monsaraz (Alentejo).

Significant changes in technology and social organization occurred after 3200 BC. Skills in copper working were accompanied by a tendency to live in larger village communities. Differences in natural resources and population density meant that regions developed unequally, and centres of innovation are known all around the southern and southwestern coasts of Spain and Portugal. Particularly impressive is the settlement at Los Millares (Almería), which extends over five acres (two hectares) and is protected by triple walls of stone reinforced with towers at regular intervals. A formidable barbican with arrow slits and guard chambers projected from the gateway. These defenses stretch over 330 yards (300 metres) and cut off a triangle of land high above the Andarax River, with a cemetery of more than 70 collective tombs lying just outside the walls. On the nearby hills 10 or 15 smaller citadels watched over the natural approaches to the village. Modest dwellings lay inside, and an especially large building was used as a workshop to melt copper and to cast objects in simple molds; the metal wastes and crucibles show that pure copper and copper mixed with a small amount of arsenic as a hardening agent were regularly selected. Mines and copper smelting slags of this date are known from the Alhamilla highlands, less than 12 miles (20 kilometres) to the east. Smaller, undefended villages are known from El Barranquete and Almizaraque (Almería). The agricultural economy was based on growing wheat and barley, raising common domestic animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats, and probably tilling small areas of river bottomland, the only land plentifully watered in this arid region. Varied grave goods such as copper implements, personal ornaments, and decorated vessels for drinking and feasting (called bell beakers from their distinctive shape) indicate a stratified tribal society at Los Millares with marked inequality of riches and access to the good things in life. The defenses and multiple forts suggest social instability and the raiding and fighting that went with it. Similar villages and their megalithic tombs are known in the western outskirts of Seville, eastward at the Cabezo del Plomo (Murcia), and at Vila Nova de São Pedro and Zambujal north of Lisbon (Portugal).

Many Copper Age villages were abandoned by 2000 BC, and Bronze Age settlement shifted to new sites, sometimes only a few hundred yards away. Steep hilltops were favoured for their inaccessibility, and in southeastern Spain the custom of burying people below the floors of their houses replaced the collective practices of the Copper Age societies. Social stratification is very marked at settlement sites like El Argar and El Oficio (Almería), where the richest women were adorned with silver diadems, while their male consorts were equipped with bronze swords, axes, and polished pottery. At Fuente-Álamo (Almería) the elite lived apart from the village, in square stone houses with round granaries and a water cistern nearby. Such customs were practiced, with less intensity, on the southern Meseta, where fortified hamlets known as motillas dominated a flat landscape. In eastern and northern Spain people did not live in villages at all but in hamlets such as Moncín (Saragossa) or on isolated family farms such as El Castillo (Frías de Albarracín, Teruel). In the wetter regions of Spain and Portugal, along the Atlantic coast and Bay of Biscay, so-called castros--small settlements fortified with a deep ditch and inner bank--arose, with a flourishing bronze industry linked to southern Britain and France and a custom of burying hoards of metal tools and weapons. Mining for copper ores was practiced at El Milagro and Aramo (Asturias), where the last miners abandoned their antler picks and levers deep in the underground galleries. Such differences in settlement patterns and customs indicate that Bronze Age Spain was not homogeneous but a social mosaic that included centralized tribal societies as well as looser associations based on smaller units. Such Bronze Age societies were prospering when Phoenician sailors reached Spain about 800 BC.

The Iberians –

The People of Spain

Spain has been invaded and inhabited by many different peoples. The peninsula was originally settled by groups from North Africa and western Europe, including the Iberians, Celts, and Basques. Throughout antiquity it was a constant point of attraction for the more advanced civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean. From about 1100 BC the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Carthaginians began to establish settlements and trading posts, especially on the eastern and southern coasts.

These outsiders found a mosaic of peoples collectively known as the Iberians, who, however, did not have a single culture or even share a single language. There was a kingdom called Tartessus, which flourished between 800 and 550 BC, that ruled much of the valley of the Guadalquivir. Elsewhere political organization was less sophisticated, consisting of a number of city-states in the coastal regions and of clans in the interior and the northwest.

The Iberians

Spanish ibero, one of a prehistoric people of southern and eastern Spain who later gave their name to the whole peninsula. The waves of migrating Celtic peoples from the 8th to 6th century BC onward settled heavily in northern and central Spain, penetrated Portugal and Galicia, but left the indigenous Bronze Age Iberian people of the south and east intact. Greek geographers give the name Iberian, probably connected with that of the Ebro (Iberus) River, to tribes settled on the southeastern coast, but, by the time of the Greek historian Herodotus (mid-5th century BC), it applied to all the peoples between the Ebro and Huelva rivers, who were probably linguistically connected and whose material culture was distinct from that of the north and west. There were, however, areas of overlap between the Iberian and Celtic peoples, as in the Celtiberian tribes of the northeastern Meseta Central and in Catalonia and Aragon.

Of the Iberian tribes mentioned by classical authors, the Bastetani were territorially the most important and occupied the Almería region and mountainous Granada region. The tribes to the west of the Bastetani are usually grouped together as "Tartessian," after the name Tartessos given to the region by the Greeks. The Turdetani of the Guadalquivir River valley were the most powerful of this group. Culturally the tribes of the northeast and of the Valencian coast were greatly influenced by the Greek settlements at Emporion (modern Ampurias) and in the Alicante region, those of the southeast by influences from the Phoenician trading colonies at Malaca (Málaga), Sexi (Almuñéca), and Abdera (Adra), which later passed to the Carthaginians.

On the east coast the Iberian tribes appear to have been grouped around independent city-states. In the south there were monarchies, and the treasure of El Carambolo, near Seville, has been thought to be that of a ruler of Tartessos. Religious sanctuaries have yielded bronzes and terra-cotta figures, especially in mountainous areas. There is a wide range of ceramics in the distinctive Iberian styles. Exported pottery has been found in southern France, Sardinia, Sicily, and Africa; and Greek imports were frequent. The splendid "Lady of Elche," a bust with characteristic headdress and ornaments, also shows classical influence. The Iberian economy had a rich agriculture and mining and metallurgy.

The Iberian language, a non-Indo-European tongue, continued to be spoken into early Roman times. Along the east coast it was written in Iberian script, a system of 28 syllabic and alphabetic characters, some derived from Greek and Phoenician systems but most of unknown origin. Many inscriptions in the script survive. Few words, however, except place-names on the coinage struck by many cities in the 3rd century BC, can be understood. The Iberians retained their writing system until the Roman conquest, when the Latin alphabet came into use. Although the modern Basque language was formerly thought to be the descendant of Iberian, many scholars now believe the two languages to be separate.

Iberian Civilization

The indigenous Bronze Age societies reacted vigorously to the culture of the Phoenicians and then the Greeks, adopting eastern Mediterranean values and technologies. At first the process of assimilation was exclusive, affecting few people; then it gathered pace and volume, drawing entire societies into the transformation. Everywhere the process of change was rapid and intense, lasting a few generations between 700 and 550 BC. As old patterns of patronage were overturned with the arrival of new prestige goods outside the control of the former rulers, new adventurers came onto the scene. Their traces can be seen in rich tombs around Carmona at cemeteries such as El Acebuchal, Setefilla, and in Huelva at the cemetery of La Joya. Princely wealth from La Joya included a chariot of walnut wood, an ivory casket with silver hinges, bronze mirrors, tiered incense burners, and ornate libation jugs. Gold jewelry is known from many spectacular treasures in southern Spain, of which the regalia from El Carambolo (Seville) and the mixture of jewels, engraved scarabs, and tableware of silver and glass from Aliseda (Cáceres) are good examples. Glass and ivory were imported, but the impressive goldwork of filigree and granulation was probably western Phoenician craftsmanship.

By 550 BC a distinctive Iberian culture can be recognized throughout the entire south and east of the peninsula. The name Iberian was the one used by classical writers, although it referred to a culture having an ethnic and linguistic diversity that remained politically distinctive until its incorporation into the Roman Empire.

Iberian civilization had an urban base, and indigenous cities arose after 600 BC, imitating aspects of the Phoenician and Greek colonies. They were especially large and numerous in western Andalusia, at Ategua, Cástulo, Ibros, Osuna, Tejada la Vieja, and Torreparedones, and, somewhat later, also at the other end of the Iberian world, in northeastern Spain at Calaceite (Teruel), Olérdola, Tivissa (Tarragona), and Ullastret (Gerona). Cities were political centres with territories; while some joined into confederacies, others were independent city-states. The urban heartland in western Andalusia prospered uninterruptedly from 550 BC, but many towns in southern and eastern Spain were destroyed in the middle of the 4th century amid political turbulence attributed to Carthaginian influence.

The economy continued to be based on agriculture, though supplemented with cultivated grapes and olives of eastern origin. Ironworking was introduced by the Phoenicians, and iron was available everywhere for basic agricultural tools by 400 BC, although forging inlaid and damascened weapons brought the blacksmiths' art to a peak. The fast potter's wheel allowed mass production of crockery and storage vessels. There were many regional centres of production, and the artistic repertoire grew from geometric designs in the early stages to complex figurative compositions after 300 BC. Important centres arose at Archena, Elche, Liria, and Azaila, whose artisans depicted scenes from Iberian myth and legend. Mining for silver continued at the Río Tinto, expanding up the Guadalquivir valley to the area around Cástulo and to the coast around Cartagena. The scale of extraction at the Río Tinto was enormous, and the Phoenician and Iberian workings built up more than six million tons of silver slag. Silver was abundant in Iberian society and was widely used for tableware among the upper class. An outstanding treasure from Tivissa has dishes engraved with religious themes.

Figurative stone sculpture shows Greek influence in the sophisticated modeling of human forms, especially in the friezes from Porcuna, and of animals. Sculptures of deer, griffins, horses, and lions were used as emblems to decorate tombs and were either placed on top of freestanding columns, as at Monforte de Cid, or displayed on tiered monuments. There are sphinxes from Agost and Salobral and a tower tomb from Pozo Moro (Albacete), built by 500 BC, which is decorated with bas reliefs of the Lord of the Underworld in a style reminiscent of 8th-century sculpture from northern Syria. Temples at the Cerro de los Santos (Albacete) and Cigarralejo (Murcia) yielded hundreds of stone human and horse figurines, respectively, while bronze was favoured for statuettes at the sanctuary of Despeñaperros (Jaén). Striking funerary sculptures of enthroned ladies, bejeweled and robed, from Elche and Baza represent the Carthaginian goddess Astarte; the throne had a side cavity to receive cremations.

Three native writing systems developed in Iberia. An alphabet derived from Phoenician signs was used in the southwest by 650 BC, and alphabets based on Greek models arose in the southeast and in Catalonia after 425 BC. Many inscriptions exist, including letters inscribed on rolled-up lead sheets found in houses at Mogente (Valencia) and Ullastret, but they cannot be read. Only the names of places and some personal names can be recognized. The Iberian writing systems remained in use until the Roman conquest.

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