The history of Iberian archaeology: one archaeology for two Spains.

The history of Iberian archaeology: one archaeology for two Spains. Introduction In this article we set out to analyse, from an archaeological pointof view, a political problem which, as demonstrated by current debate,including acts of violence, goes well beyond archaeology. Throughout the19th century, and especially in its latter half, a centralist cen��tral��ism?n.Concentration of power and authority in a central organization, as in a political system.central��ist n. politicalmodel for Spain was developed in which a political balance could not befound between the State and the autonomous traditions of the variousregions of the Iberian Peninsula Iberian Peninsula,c.230,400 sq mi (596,740 sq km), SW Europe, separated from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees. Comprising Spain and Portugal, it is washed on the N and W by the Atlantic Ocean and on the S and E by the Mediterranean Sea; the Strait of Gibraltar . As a result of this failure,legitimation programmes began to be constructed towards the end of 19thcentury, based on the history of the peoples of these regions. This ledto a search in protohistorical archaeology (Iberians, Celts,Tartessians, etc.) for a possible solution to the political problemscaused by a lack of institutional agreement between states and regions. Peripheral reactions to the centralist model, disagreements betweenthe centralist model and peripheral regions, and even local reactions toregional models all fuelled a debate which continues with us today.Archaeological research has an important voice in this debate, notablyby deconstructing the processes by which paradigmatic See paradigm. statements on thepast are generated. A time of crisis: from August 1897 to December 1898 The starting point Noun 1. starting point - earliest limiting pointterminus a quocommencement, get-go, offset, outset, showtime, starting time, beginning, start, kickoff, first - the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the of this study is 4 August 1897, when an Iberiancarved stone bust was accidentally discovered in Elche in Eastern Spain(FIGURE 1). The finding was published in the local press on 8 August.Ten days later the bust was sold to the Louvre Louvre(l`vrə), foremost French museum of art, located in Paris. The building was a royal fortress and palace built by Philip II in the late 12th cent. , and by 30 August beganthe Paris-bound journey of `La Dama de Elche', soon to be theparadigmatic figure of Iberian culture. On 10 December 1898, the Parispeace treaty was signed, ending the Spanish-American war Spanish-American War,1898, brief conflict between Spain and the United States arising out of Spanish policies in Cuba. It was, to a large degree, brought about by the efforts of U.S. expansionists. , and deprivingSpain of Cuba and the Philippines. The beginning of the 20th centurymeant for the peoples of Spain a reflection on their identity, in themidst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?"midmost of a profound social and political crisis in which a new group ofintellectuals took the reins of power. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] In fact, the situation had brought about the beginning of alegitimation programme of Spain's political identity which wouldlast until the Second Republic, and the consequences of which are stillevident. It was the ideological programme of a new hegemonic block, ledby the most liberal and democratic sectors of the Spanish bourgeoisie. The programme began to influence archaeology for the first time in1900 when two recognized members of Institucion Libre de Ensenanza,Saavedra and Riano, succeeded in obtaining from the government ofSilvela the appointment of the young Gomez-Moreno as head of theMonumental and Artistic Catalogue of the Nation. The creation anddevelopment of different institutions increased between 1910 and 1916.In 1910, under Canalejas' Liberal government, the Centro deEstudios Historicos was founded, led from the start by Menendez Pidal.It was supported from the beginning by Gomez-Moreno, and had anextremely important role. Spanish Nationalism in the 19th century and the origins of theSpanish nation In Spain, researchers agree that the origin of the Spanish Nationcan be placed at the beginning of the 19th century. B. Riquer, whointerprets the nation as the result of the politicization andradicalization of identity, divides Spanish nationalization nationalization,acquisition and operation by a country of business enterprises formerly owned and operated by private individuals or corporations. State or local authorities have traditionally taken private property for such public purposes as the construction of into twomodels. The first model corresponds to liberal nationalism, and is basedon individual liberties. It is a civic-state process in which theconcept of the nation is not fully identified with that of the state.The second model, which could be called national identity, entails thesubmission of personal relationships to the right of the nationalcollective; to the interest of the nation. This is also the interest ofthe state, since it is evident that the process has led to theconstruction of an equivalence between the state and the nation (Riquer1999). In political terms, the development of the process was notclear-cut. For this reason, Spanish nationalization is divided intothree phases in the 19th century: the first 40 years of the century;from 1840 to 1875; and from 1875 onwards. In the first phase of nationalization, there was opposition in theCortes of Cadiz between two points of view: the unitarist position,which saw the territory of the Peninsula as one unit, was opposed by themunicipalist, decentralized, federal position. The second phase ofnationalization, in the mid 19th century, is best reflected by the 1845Constitution, showing a triumph of the centralist position and singlenational identity, with limitations to popular sovereignty popular sovereignty,in U.S. history, doctrine under which the status of slavery in the territories was to be determined by the settlers themselves. Although the doctrine won wide support as a means of avoiding sectional conflict over the slavery issue, its meaning . It wasaround this time that Modesto Lafuente published the Historia General deEspana. In this work he proposed a new myth to explain the origins ofthe Spanish character, calling on a mixture of Iberians and Celts: theCeltiberians (Lafuente 1850). Archaeological questions for the national debate of the origins ofthe nation The first archaeological model on the origins of the Spanish nationwas Las Antiguedades Prehistoricas de Andalucia, by Manuel Gongora. Thelast part of this work proposed a sequence similar to that of Lafuente,namely the existence of an initial invasion by Iberian peoples comingfrom Asia, and a subsequent invasion of Celts, which dominated theIberian. The merging of both peoples resulted in the Celtiberians(Gongora 1868). A later interpretation was proposed in the work of Lasalde (1879),who theorized that the order of settlement in the peninsula was theopposite of that proposed by Gongora. According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Lasalde, these werethe Celts who first settled in the peninsula. They were followed byseveral other invasions by Galicians, Iberians and Bastetani, who pushedthe existing populations further to the centre of the peninsula. Thisproposal, together with Gongora's hypothesis on the survival ofIberian population in the eastern and western (Basque and Catalonian)Pyrenees, make up the four questions to be discussed in archaeologicaldebates on the first inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula and, also, byextension, in debates on nationalism. These four questions are: * The origin of the Iberians: Asians, Africans or indigenous? * The first settlers in the Iberian Peninsula: the Iberians or theCelts? * The area occupied by the Iberians: all the peninsula, or onlyparts of it? * Did the Iberians merge with native peoples, with invaders or withsettlers? Paniberianism (1875-1898). An incomplete programme of historicallegitimation The third phase in Riquer's model of Spanish nationalizationstarts in 1875, when the Bourbon dynasty Noun 1. Bourbon dynasty - a European royal line that ruled in France (from 1589-1793) and Spain and Naples and SicilyBourbondynasty - a sequence of powerful leaders in the same family regains the Spanish throne andthe Conservative cabinet headed by Canovas del Castillo takes over.Canovas' reactionary programme was based on a conservative andcentralised agenda, including the depoliticization of the lower classes,and the strengthening of links among the upper classes (Canovas 1981). At that time, the goal of defining the origins of Spain was sharedby politicians and researchers. The wish to separate Spain from the restof Europe, and to appear as a serious traditional society, led toconsidering the Iberians as the ultimate origin of the Spanish peoples.This `paniberianism', as this view is known, was clearly exposed inthe Historia de Espana published in 1893 under the supervision ofCanovas himself. The archaeological part was written by Vilanova y Pieraand Rada y Delgado, and it showed a clearly positivist pos��i��tiv��ism?n.1. Philosophya. A doctrine contending that sense perceptions are the only admissible basis of human knowledge and precise thought.b. approach based onthe sequence of technological ages and the thorough description of everyfinding known at the time (Vilanova y Piera & Rada y Delgado 1893) However, the paniberian movement did not take its definitive format that time, perhaps because the political fragmentation of theIberians did not quite convince the theoreticians of the Restoration,who had always preferred firmer and stronger historico-political models.The last stage in paniberianism lies in the speech given at the RoyalAcademy of History in 1906 by Melida, a renowned member of theInstitucion Libre de Ensenanza (Melida 1906). Basque and Catalan nationalisms In 1892, Sabino Arana Sabino Arana Goiri, self-styled as Arana ta Goiri'taŕ Sabin (January 26, 1865 – November 25, 1903), founder of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and a creator of Basque nationalism. wrote Bizcaya por su independencia. He laidemphasis on how in the early period of Basque nationalism Basque nationalism is a movement with roots in the Carlism and the loss by the laws of 1839 and 1876 of the Ancien Regime relationship between the Basque provinces and the crown of Spain when the Spanish government revoked part of the fueros after the Third Carlist War. , Biscay tookpride in remaining pure and untouched by the Iberian and Celt invasions,and in rejecting the splendour of the Roman Empire (Arana 1965). Inwriting that, Arana intended to put an end to to destroy.- Fuller.See also: End the debate on therelations between Iberians and Basques. This debate had involved twomajor positions: `basqueiberism' and `basquecantabrianism'.The former identified the Basque language Basque language,tongue of uncertain relationship spoken by close to a million people, most of whom live in NE Spain and some of whom reside in SW France. The language has eight dialects. as the pure remains of theIberian culture; this was a basic element of the foundations of theSpanish nationalist liberal Nationalist Liberal was the label under which Fleming Blanchard McCurdy ran in a by-election held in Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada, on September 20, 1920.McCurdy had been a Conservative Member of Parliament since 1911 and, as all Conservatives, became a Unionist in 1917, archaeology. The latter was not an opposingview, but admitted an original link between Basques and Cantabrians thatwas later broken by the Romanization and subsequent Latinization of theCantabrians (Dupla & Emborujo 1991). According to Juaristi, the high opinion that Carlism always held ofthe Basque uniqueness may have been crucial to Arana's view againstthe Iberian or Celt origins of the Basques. In fact, Spanish nationalismimplicitly entrusted the Basques with the representation of the archaicand eternal image of Spain (Juaristi 1992). As to Catalonian nationalism, its origin was linked to theideological programme of the Reinaxenca, a conservative movement whichrecreated elegiacally the medieval Catalonian past, mythicized ancestralvalues and recommended the rediscovery of rural life. The Reinaxenca wasto some extent an ideological and cultural reaction to two distinctviews. The first view was that of non-Catalan points of view present inCatalonia, which could influence the self-consciousness of thebourgeoisie as a prevailing stratum (carlists, democrats andmilitarists). The second was the centralist view proposed by theIsabelline model of the nation (Fradera 1999; Riquer 1999). The process of nationalization begun with the Reinaxenca gatherednew momentum in the late 19th century, when Almirall wrote LoCatalanisme in 1886. This work marked the onset of the growingopposition between Castillianization by the dominating Spanishnationalism, and the increasing self-consciousness of Catalonia as adifferent nation. The latter is best captured in La NacionalitatCatalana, written in 1906 by Prat de la Riba. From the point of view of the programmes of historicallegitimation, the methods used by Almirall and Prat de la Riba areclearly different. The former considers that the differences betweenCastille and Catalonia date back to the Middle Ages, and also as theresult of the identification of the Hapsburgs and Bourbons withCastille. The latter takes the Iberians as the earliest referents ofCatalonian identity (Prat de la Riba 1998). Prat de la Riba also identified the Iberian territory with thelinguistic area of Catalonian, and started the first excavations inAmpurias, the archaeological site that best represented the ideal ofCatalonian identity (Prat de la Riba 1998). Obviously, Prat de laRiba's catalanism had not accepted Rada's early paniberianism.By contrast, he acknowledged the restrictive views of Gongora'smodel and accepted the existence of a pure Iberian area in the Pyreneesfree of Celtic influence. Prat de la Riba also recognized Lasalde'sworks, which held the belief that there were a number of Iberiansettlements in the area of Catalonia and Aragon. It was the creation of the Servicio de InvestigacionesArqueologicas in 1914 that finally put archaeological evidence directlyto use and gave shape to the legitimation claims contained in Prat de laRiba's work on the origins of Catalonia (FIGURE 2). Thanks to theresearch programme of the Servicio, P. Bosch-Gimpera worked out asequence dating Sequence Dating, a relative dating method, was a method of dating developed by the Egyptiologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie. By linking styles of pottery with periods, he was the first to use seriation in Egyptology, a new method for establishing the chronology of a site. back to an initial cultural group derived from theCapsian culture The Capsian culture (named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia) was a Mesolithic culture of the Maghreb, which lasted from about 10000 BP to 6000 BP. It was concentrated mainly in modern Algeria, and Tunisia, with some sites attested in Cyrenaica (Libya). and living in the Pyrenees in the Late Neolithic(Bosch-Gimpera 1932). Based on this sequence, three elements can beidentified in Bosch-Gimpera's research on the Iron Age: First: an original nucleus of identity free of outward influences,inhabited by ausoceretes and located in the inland near the Pyrenees onthe Plana de Vic. Second: an active and expansionist ex��pan��sion��ism?n.A nation's practice or policy of territorial or economic expansion.ex��pansion��ist adj. & n. area inhabited by the coastalgroup of indiketes-sordones with subgroups which spread over areas ofCosetani, Lacetani and Layetani. Third: a more civilized but less active area, a colonizationterritory in the Ebro valley and parts of Lerida, Tarragona andValencia, inhabited by Ilergetes, Ilercavones and Edetani. From anethnical eth��ni��cal?adj.1. Ethnic.2. Of or relating to ethnology.ethni��cal��ly adv.Adj. 1. point of view Bosch-Gimpera identified these people with theIberians. In this way Bosch-Gimpera proposed the existence of an Iberianarea, which coincided to a large extent with the Catalan-speaking area-- Catalonia, southern Aragon and Valencia. This Iberian area would bethe area of natural expansion of non-Iberian tribes from northernCatalonia Northern Catalonia (Catalan: Catalunya del Nord) is a term which is sometimes used, particularly in Catalan writings, to refer to the territory ceded to France by Spain in 1659. who would form the original nucleus of Catalan identity.Although this modified Prat de la Riba's original theory of theIberian origin of Catalonia, Catalan uniqueness was reinforced, and theessence of the Iberian was reserved for the Catalan cultural circle(Bosch-Gimpera 1932). Spanish nationalism: Gomez-Moreno's theory Spanish nationalism was also expressed in 1925, when M.Gomez-Moreno exposed an ideological reconstruction well in line with themodel presented by Bosch-Gimpera. Gomez-Moreno agreed with Bosch-Gimperain marking similar territories for Iberians and Tartessian-Mastieni,but, unlike him, did not separate Iberian and non-Iberian tribes inCatalonia. Based on his knowledge of Iberian epigraphy epigraphy:see inscription. and on hisdefence of Basqueiberianism, Gomez-Moreno proposed that the originalIberian nucleus, that is the original nucleus of Spanish identity,reached from the Basque area to Valencia (FIGURE 3) (Gomez-Moreno 1949). Otherwise, Gomez-Moreno repeated the structure ofBosch-Gimpera's model. He added to the Iberian nucleus of originalSpanish identity an active area: the Andalusian Tartessos. From thisactive area, an expansion drive led towards the Balearic Islands Balearic Islands(bălēăr`ĭk), Span. Baleares (bälāä`rās), archipelago, off Spain, in the W Mediterranean, forming Baleares prov. (1990 pop. in theBronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the , and later, in the Celtic period, towards the centre andnortheast of Spain (FIGURE 4) (Gomez-Moreno 1949). The proposal of theterm `Hispanic' to replace Iberian was immediately welcomed by thescholars at the Centro de Estudios Historicos. [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] Celtism: a post-war theory Already in 1905 Gomez-Moreno had pointed out the existence of apast and long-forgotten theory according to which the Celts had builtthe large megalithic meg��a��lith?n.A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles, notably in western Europe during the second millennium b.c. monuments of Antequera (Gomez-Moreno 1949). Withthe end of the Spanish Civil War Spanish civil war,1936–39, conflict in which the conservative and traditionalist forces in Spain rose against and finally overthrew the second Spanish republic. and the start of Franco's regime,a number of scholars found the old Celtist theory useful to build up alink with the origins of the then rising National Socialism in Germany.The `panceltist' theory did not entail a rejection of the commonorigin of Spain. What Franco's nationalism was actually doing wasreplacing the Iberians with the Celts, and promoting the notion that theIberians were in fact Celts with strong Mediterranean influence (FIGURE5). [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] In a written homage to the martyrs of the Spanish Civil Warpublished in 1941, Martinez Santaolalla laid the foundations of the newlegitimation of the regime based on the Celtic origin of Spain. Thisproposal established a sequence for late Prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to that consisted oftwo phases. The first was marked by a series of North-African invasionsand which was also successively influenced by Mediterraneancivilizations from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (1200 BC). The secondphase started suddenly in the first Late Bronze and the arrival of up tofour Indo-European invasions that, according to Martinez Santaolalla,would in time result in a radical cultural, economic and racial change.The fourth Indo-European invasion in the Early Iron Age supplies theCelt population which split into two lines: one Goidelic, in the CentralPlateau and the Atlantic Coast, and one Iberianizing or Celtiberian, onthe Mediterranean Coast. The second line, under Greek and Carthaginianinfluence, would taken on the Classical traits leading it to itscultural splendour after the Roman conquest. According to MartinezSantaolalla, sculpture groups like the Lady of Elche date back to thistime (Martinez Santaolalla 1941). This scholar must have relied on the concept of `hispanic'supplied by Gomez-Moreno, because this term appeared in thebibliographical reference cited earlier. However, Martinez Santaolallaaltered the notion of paniberianism to include two qualifications:first, he understood that the first settlers were not Iberians, butCelts and, second, and more importantly, he changed the diversityprinciple contained in Gomez-Moreno's notion of `hispanic'.Another factor supported this Celtist position: it came in 1943, whenGarcia y Bellido (1943) dated Iberian art as provincial Roman art, thusproviding empirical foundations for Martinez Santaolalla'spanceltism. Some years later, Garcia y Bellido (1952) himself wouldargue against Almagro Basch's Celtism in Men6ndez Pidal'sHistoria de Espana. That came at a time when panceltism was to disappearfor political reasons that are well-known, and for lack of scientificevidence to maintain this view. This time coincides in political terms with the internal crisiswithin Franco's regime, which relegated the influence of theFalange to that of a mere institutional image. The place of the Falangewas taken by fundamentalist Catholic positions, which in archaeologicalterms returned to the concept of Iberian autonomy from the Celts. Thiswas shown by Pericot in his work on Las raices de Espana. In 1949 Gomez-Moreno had already published his book Miscelaneas.This work contained his research on Pre- and Proto-history, especiallyhis two syntheses of 1922 and 1925 in which he insisted on his originaltheory on the Iberians. Similarly, Fletcher (1949) argued for Iberianismat the Servicio de Investigaciones Prehistoricas in Valencia. Panceltism had lasted only one decade. By contrast, Iberianarchaeology remained as the basis of the legimitation processes for thetwo Spains: the Spain of the exiles like Bosch-Gimpera in Mexico, andthe Spain that dozed for decades under Franco's dictatorship. References ARANA, S. 1965. Obras completas. Buenos Aires Buenos Aires(bwā`nəs ī`rēz, âr`ēz, Span. bwā`nōs ī`rās), city and federal district (1991 pop. : Sabindiar'rBatza. BOSCH-GIMPERA, P. 1932. Etnologia de la Peninsula Iberica.Barcelona. CANOVAS, A. 1981. Discursos en el Ateneo. Obras Completas. Tomo I..Madrid: Fundacion Canovas del Castillo. DUPLA, A. & A. EMBORUJO. 1991. El vascocantabrismo: mito yrealidad en la historiografia sobre el Pais Vasco en la antiguedad,Congreso Internacional Historiografia de la Arqueologia y de la HistoriaAntigua en Espana (siglos XVIII-XX). Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura. FLETCHER, a. 1949. Defensa del Iberismo, Anales del Centro DeCultura Valenciana, [n.sub.o] 23, vol. XVIII: 168-87. FRADERA, J. M. 1999. El proyecto liberal catalan y los imperativosdel doble patriotismo, in Garcia (ed.). GARDA, A.M. (ed.). 1999. Espana, [??] Nacion de naciones?, Madrid:Marcial Pons. GARCIA Y BELLIDO, A. 1943. Algunos problemas de arte y cronologiaibericos, Archivo Espanol de Arqueologia 16. 1952. Arte iberico, in R. Menendez Pidal (ed.), Historia de Espana.Madrid. GOMEZ-MORENO, M. 1949. Miscelaneas, Historia-Arte Arqueologia,Primera Serie, La Antiguedad. Madrid: Instituto Diego Velazquez,C.S.I.C. GONGORA, M. 1868. Antiguedades prehistoricas de Andalucia. Madrid:Imprenta a cargo de C. Moro. JUARISTI, J. 1992. Vestigios de Babel Babel(bā`bəl)[Heb.,=confused], in the Bible, place where Noah's descendants (who spoke one language) tried to build a tower reaching up to heaven to make a name for themselves. . Para una arqueologia de losnacionalismos espanoles. Madrid: Siglo XXI Siglo XXI (Spanish for 21st century) may refer to: Siglo XXI Convention Centre, in M��rida, Yucat��n Siglo Veintiuno, an Guatemalan newspaper . LAFUENTE, M. 1850. Historia General de Espana desde los tiemposprimitivos hasta la muerte de Fernando VII. Madrid: Tip. de D. Franciscode P. Mellado. LASALDE, C. 1879. Estudios sobre el pueblo Bastitan, SeminarioMurciano, ano II, [n.sup.o] 85: 87-98. MARTINEZ SANTAOLALLA, J. 1941. Corona de estudios que la sociedadespanola de antropologia, etnografia y prehistoria dedica a susmartires, Tomo I. Madrid: C.S.I.C. MELIDA, J. R. 1906. Iberia arqueologica ante-romana. Discursosleidos ante la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid. PRAT DE LA RIBA, E. 1998. La Nacionalitat Catalana. Barcelona:Edicions 62. (1st edition 1906). RIQUER, B. DE. 1999. El surgimiento de las nuevas identidadescontemporaneas: propuestas para una discusion, in Garcia (ed.). VILANOVA Y PIERA, J. and RADA Y DELGADO, J. 1893. Geologia yProtohistoria ibericas, in A. Canovas (ed.) Historia General de Espana,vol. I. Madrid: El Progreso editorial. ARTURO RUIZ, ALBERTO SANCHEZ & JUAN P. BELLON * * Andalusian Centre for Iberian Archaeology (Jaen, Spain), ParajeLas Lagunillas s/n Edif. B1, 23071 Jaen, Spain.