Andalusia - History

History

The geostrategic position of Andalusia in the extreme south of Europe, providing (along with Morocco) a gateway between Europe and Africa, added to its position between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, as well as its rich deposits of minerals and its agricultural wealth, have made Andalusia a tempting prize for civilizations since prehistoric times. Add to this its area of 87,268 square kilometres (33,694 sq mi) (larger than many European countries), and it can be no surprise that Andalusia has figured prominently in the history of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Given that the origin of humanity was almost certainly in Africa, several theories postulate that the first hominids in Europe were in Andalusia, having passed across the Strait of Gibraltar; the earliest known paintings of humanity have been found in the Caves of Nerja, Málaga. The first settlers, based on artifacts from the archaeological sites at Los Millares, El Argar, and Tartessos, were clearly influenced by cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean who arrived on the Andalusian coast. Andalusia then went through a period of protohistory, when the region did not have a written language of its own, but its existence was known to and documented by literate cultures, principally the Phoenicians (Gadir, Malaka) and Ancient Greeks. During the second millennium BCE, the kingdom of Tartessos developed in Andalusia. The Tartessian language from the southwest of the Iberian peninsula, which John T. Koch has claimed to be able to translate, has been accepted by philologists and other linguists as the first attested Celtic language. From later 2011, Tartessian was classified as a Celtic language based on linguistic arguments from John T. Koch. Prior to later 2011, the linguistic mainstream continued to treat Tartessian as an unclassified language, and Koch's view of the evolution of Celtic was not then generally accepted.