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The Historical Beginnings
Neanderthal man is known to have lived on the Rock of Gibraltar, 50,000 years ago. In about 8,000 BC an influx of North African tribes established farming settlements throughout the region, and these people are known today as the Iberians. Andalucia's seaboard was extensively settled by the Phoenicians, who established a chain of trading posts, founding the sea port of Cadiz in 1100BC - which makes its Europe's oldest city - and strongly influencing the way of life of the native Iberians. The Celts moved south across Europe and into Andalucia about 800BC. It is said that the Phoenicians founded Gades in order to trade with the Tartessus Kingdom was also flourishing in Andalucia from the great lost city of Tartessus located at the mouth of the River Guadalquivir. The Tartessans' success was attributed to discovering the 'Tin islands' (Scilly Islands) and access to a valuable commodity in the production of bronze. Tartessus vanished suddenly about 600BC probably in a great flood (Tartessus is a candidate for the lost city of Atlantis, Plato claimed that Atlantis was located outside the Pilars of Hercules) the and at the time Greek sailors founded various trading ports along the peninsular. By the year 500 BC, the Carthaginians had colonised southern Spain.
The Romans and the History of Spain
In their struggle against Carthage, the Romans invaded the peninsula in 206 BC, crushing the resistance of the native Iberians and soon transforming Andalucia into one of their richest and best organised colonies, which they called Betis, crisscrossing the region with paved roads.
Roman galleys sailed up its main river, now called the Guadalquivir, as far as Cordoba, where they took on board amphorae of olive oil and wine for exportation to Rome. Under the Romans, in the 4th century, Spain became a Christian country, and the Spanish language – perhaps the closest modern tongue to Latin – began to take its current shape.
The Dark Ages in Andalucia and the Moors
After the collapse of the Empire, Andalucia was devastated by successive waves of barbarian tribes coming from northern Europe, with the eventual predomination of the Visigoths.
This warlike people reigned chaotically over the peninsula for almost two centuries, leaving Spain open to the invasion of the Moors - Islamic warriors from Arabia and North Africa - in the year 711, and who called the region al-Andalus because they associated it with the Vandals, one of the barbarian tribes who had, several centuries earlier, swept across the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa.
The Moors made the region their home for eight centuries and permanently marked it with their cultural legacy, signs of which are still visible in monuments such as the Mosque of Cordoba and the Alhambra Palace in Granada. It was not until the 13th century that the Christian Reconquest reached Andalucia, seizing the cities of Cordoba and Seville
By the end of the 15th century, the Catholic Monarchs, Isabel of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon, had taken the last stronghold of the Moors, Granada and the Alhambra Palace.
The History of Spain under Christian rule
Andalucia was the launching point for the discovery of America (after the Upper Guadalquivir had silted up, making it impossible to sail as far inland as Cordoba), and Seville became the main port for the imports of gold from the New World during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Much of the wealth from America was spent on the wars waged by Spain's Hapsburg monarchy against the Lutheran countries in northern Europe and the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean, and as the flow of riches decreased, Spain and Andalucia sank into economic decline. Europe was at war and William and Mary were fighting Louis XIV. The region suffered the ravages of the Spanish War of Succession in the early 18th century and, one hundred years later, the Napoleonic invasion and the Battle of Trafalgar, touching off the War of Independence. Andalucia's economy suffered the direct effect of the independence movement in South America during the rest of the 19th century.
Andalucia in the 20th century
The devastating loss of Spain's last colonies, Cuba and the Philippines, led to political instability and further economic decline, culminating in the deposition of the monarchy and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, when the Republic was overthrown by General Franco and his Nationalist movement. Although Spain did not openly take sides in World War II, Franco lent his support to the Axis, as a result of which Spain suffered the disastrous effects of an international blockade after the war. It was not until Franco died, in 1975, that democracy was restored, under the symbolic monarchy of King Juan Carlos II. Spanish government was decentralised and Andalucia became an Autonomous Region in 1982, with its own regional administration, the Junta de Andalucia (Assembly of Andalucia). Since then, Spain, as an active member of the European Union, has experienced a dramatic improvement in the standard of living. The poverty of the Andalucian countryside has been largely eliminated and its people have regained their pride in the local culture, which flourishes alongside the benefits of improved roads, modern health care and high-tech infrastructures. The romantic image of Andalucia, in spite of progress, is still very much a thing of the present.
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