Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe, and includes modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and a very small part of France. It is the westernmost of the three southern European peninsulas (the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas). It is bordered on the southeast and east by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the north, west and southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. The Pyrenees form the northeast edge of the peninsula, separating it from the rest of Europe. In the south, it approaches the northern coast of Africa. It is the second largest peninsula in Europe, with an area of 582,860 square kilometres (225,040 sq mi).

Contents 1 Name 1.1 The Greek name 1.2 The Roman names 2 Etymology 3 Geography 3.1 Overall characteristics 3.2 Coastline 4 Geology 5 Modern countries and territories 6 Prehistory 6.1 Palaeolithic 6.2 Neolithic 6.3 Chalcolithic 6.4 Bronze Age 7 Proto-history 8 History 8.1 Roman Spain 8.2 Germanic Spain 8.3 Islamic Spain 8.4 Reconquest 8.5 Post reconquest 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Name

The Greek name

The English word Iberia was adapted from the use of the Ancient Greek word Ἱβηρία (Ibēría) by the Greek geographers under the Roman Empire to mean what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula.^[1] The name was not then used to mean a single political country or a population speaking a single language.^[2] Strabo's Iberia was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass south (he mistakenly said west) of there.

The Greeks discovered Iberia by voyaging westward. Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term around 500 BC.^[3] Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with ... Iberia."^[4] According to Strabo^[5] prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος (Ibēros)" as far north as the Rhone river in France but currently they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit^[6] but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere^[7] he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia."

Concerning the original population that lived in Iberia Strabo makes a statement that has led many to tag the original Iberia as Basque.^[8] He refers to the Carretanians as people "of the Iberian stock" living in the Pyrenees, who are to be distinguished from either Celts or Celtiberians.

For more details on this topic, see Iberian language, Iberians.

The Roman names

When the Romans encountered the Greek geographers they used Iberia poetically and spoke of the Iberi, the population of Iberia.^[9] First mention was in 200 BC by the poet Quintus Ennius. The Romans had already had independent experience with the peoples on the peninsula during the long conflict with Carthage. The Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania.

As they became politically interested in the former territories of Carthage the Romans came to use Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for "near" and "far Spain". Even at that time large sections of it were Lusitania (Portugal), Celtiberia (central Spain), Baetica (Andalusia), Cantabria (northwest Spain) and the Vascones (Basques). Strabo says^[10] that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, and distance them as near and far. He was living in a time when the peninsula was divided into Roman provinces, some belonging "to the people and the Senate" and some to "the Roman emperor." Baetia was distinguished by being the only one belonging "to the people." Whatever language may have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for Basque, protected by the Pyrenees.

For more details on this topic, see Hispania, name.

Etymology

"Iberia" has always been associated with the Ebro river, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the whole of Spain" Hiberia because of the river Hiberus.^[11] The river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian,^[12] uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius^[13] states that the "native name" is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination.

The early range of these natives, stated by the geographers and historians to be from southern Spain to southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed "Iberian." Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence on the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must remain unknown also.

Geography

For more details on this topic, see Geography of Spain, Geography of Portugal.

Overall characteristics

The Iberian peninsula extends from the southernmost extremity at Punta de Tarifa () to the northernmost extremity at Estaca de Bares Point () over a distance between lines of latitude of about 865 kilometres (537 mi) based on a degree length of 111 km per degree, and from the westernmost extremity at Cabo da Roca () to the easternmost extremity at Cap de Creus () over a distance between lines of longitude at 40° N latitude of about 1,155 kilometres (718 mi) based on an estimated degree length of about 90 km for that latitude. The irregular, roughly octagonal shape of the peninsula contained within this spherical quadrangle was compared to an ox-hide by the geographer, Strabo.^[14] Approximately 3/4 if the octagon is the Meseta Central, a low and rolling plateau of up to several hundred meters in altitude.^[15] It is located roughly in the center, staggered slightly to the east and tilted slightly toward the west. It is ringed by mountains and contains the sources of most of the rivers, which find their way through gaps in the mountain barriers on all sides.

Coastline

The coastline of the Iberian Peninsula is a drowned one, with sea levels rising from a minimum of 115 metres (380 ft) to 120 metres (390 ft) lower than today at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to its current level at 4000 years BP.^[16] The coastal shelf created by sedimentation during that time remains below the surface.

Geology

Main article: Geology of the Iberian Peninsula

Modern countries and territories

Political divisions of the Iberian Peninsula sorted by area:

Country/Territory	Peninsular area (km²)	Share	Description
Spain	493,519	85%	occupying most of the peninsula
Portugal	89,261	15%	occupying most of the west of the peninsula
French Cerdagne	540	0%	a small French territory in the Pyrenees Mountains technically on the Iberian peninsula
Andorra	468	0%	a northern edge of the peninsula in the Pyrenees between Spain and France
Gibraltar	7	0%	a tiny British overseas territory near the southernmost tip of the peninsula.

Prehistory

Main article: Prehistoric Iberia

Palaeolithic

The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 1,000,000 years as remains found in the sites at Atapuerca demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina, where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to the species Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, or a new species called Homo antecessor.

Around 200,000 BC, during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BC, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last ice age began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 35,000 BC, during the Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France this culture extended into Northern Iberia. This culture continued to exist until around 28,000 BC when Neanderthal man faced extinction, their final refuge being present-day Portugal.

At about the 40th millennium BC Modern Humans make way into the Iberian peninsula, coming from Southern France. Here, this genetically homogeneous population (characterized by the M173 mutation in the Y chromosome), developed the M343 mutation, giving rise to the R1b Haplogroup, still the most common in modern Portuguese and Spanish males. In Iberia, Modern Humans will develop a series of different cultures, such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, some of then characterized by complex forms of Paleolithic art.

Neolithic

During the Neolithic expansion, various megalithic cultures had developed in Iberia. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the Cardium culture, had also extended their influence to the eastern coasts of Iberia, possibly as early as the 5th millennium B.C. These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the Iberian civilization.

Chalcolithic

In the Chalcolithic or Copper Age (c. 3000 BC in Iberia) a series of complex cultures developed, that would give rise of the first civilizations in Iberia and of extensive exchange networks that would reach to the Baltic, the Middle East and North Africa. Since c. 2150 BC the Bell Beaker culture intrudes in Chalcolithic Iberia, of quite clear Central European origin.

Bronze Age

Bronze Age cultures eventually developed since c.1800 BC, where the civilization of Los Millares was followed by that of El Argar - from this center, bronze technology spread to other areas, such as those of the Bronze of Levante, South-Western Iberian Bronze and Cogotas I.

In the Late Bronze Age the clearly urban civilization of Tartessos would develop in the area of modern western Andalusia, characterized by Phoenician influence and Tartessian script of its Tartessian language, a language isolate not related to the Iberian language.

Early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Pre-Celts and Celts migrated from central Europe, thus partially changing the ethnic landscape of Iberia into a clearly Indo-European space in its northern and western regions.

Proto-history

Main article: Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

By the Iron Age, starting in the 7th century BC, the global panorama in Iberia was one of complex agrarian and urban civilizations, either Pre-Celtic or Celtic (such as the Lusitanians, the Celtiberians, the Gallaeci, the Astur, or the Celtici, amongst others), the cultures of the Iberians in the eastern and southern zones of Iberia and the cultures of the Aquitanian in the western portion of the Pyrenees.

The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1100 BCE Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century BCE the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro). In the 6th century BCE the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

History

Roman Spain

Main article: Hispania

In 219 BCE, the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula, during the Second Punic war against the Carthaginians, and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies, resulting in the creation of the province of Hispania. It was divided into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior during the late Roman Republic, and during the Roman Empire, it was divided into Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast, Hispania Baetica in the south and Lusitania in the southwest.

Hispania supplied the Roman Empire with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial and Lucan were born from families living in Iberia.

Germanic Spain

Main articles: Visigothic Kingdom and Spania

In the early 5th century, Germanic tribes invaded the peninsula, namely the Suevi, the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and their allies, the Sarmatian Alans. Only the kingdom of the Suevi (Quadi and Marcomanni) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths, who conquered all of the Iberian peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually conquered the Suevi kingdom and its capital city Bracara (modern day Braga) in 584-585. They would also conquer the province of the Byzantine Empire (552-624) of Spania in the south of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands.

Islamic Spain

Main articles: Al Andalus and Islam in Spain

In 711 CE, a North African Moorish Umayyad army invaded Visigothic Christian Hispania. Under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. Al-ʾAndalūs (Arabic الإندلس : Land of the Vandals) is the Arabic name given the Iberian Peninsula by its Muslim conquerors and its subsesquent inhabitants.

From the 8th to the 15th centuries, parts of the Iberian peninsula were ruled by the Moors (mainly Berber with some Arab) who had crossed over from North Africa.

Reconquest

Main article: Reconquista

Many of the ousted Gothic nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known as the Reconquista. Christian and Muslim kingdoms fought and allied among themselves. The Muslim taifa kings competed in patronage of the arts, the Way of Saint James attracted pilgrims from all Western Europe and the Jewish population of Iberia set the basis of Sephardic culture.

In medieval times the peninsula housed many small states including Castile, Aragon, Navarre, León and Portugal. The peninsula was part of the Islamic Almohad empire until they were finally uprooted. The last major Muslim stronghold was Granada which was eliminated by a combined Castilian and Aragonese force in 1492.

Post reconquest

Main articles: History of Portugal and History of Spain

The small states gradually amalgamated over time, with the exception of Portugal, even if for a brief period (1580-1640) the whole peninsula was united politically under the Iberian Union. After that point the modern position was reached and the peninsula now consists of the countries of Spain and Portugal (excluding their islands - the Portuguese Azores and Madeira Islands and the Spanish Canary Islands and Balearic Islands; and the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla), Andorra, French Cerdagne and Gibraltar.

See also

References

External links

• Arioso, Pāolā; Diego Meozzi. "Iberian Peninsula•Links" (html). Stone Pages. Retrieved on 2008-12-05.
• Flores, Carlos; Nicole Maca-Meyer; Ana M Gonzalez; Peter J Oefner; Peidong Shen; Jose A Perez; Antonio Rojas; Jose M Larruga; Peter A Underhill (2004). "Reduced genetic structure of the Iberian peninsula revealed by Y-chromosome analysis: implications for population demography" (pdf). European Journal of Human Genetics 12: 855–863. http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/EJHG_2004_v12_p855.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-12-05. 
• Loyd, Nick (2007). "IberiaNature: A guide to the environment, climate, wildlife, geography and nature of Spain" (html). Retrieved on 2008-12-4.
• Silva, Luís Fraga de. "Ethnologic Map of Pre-Roman Iberia (circa 200 B.C.). NEW VERSION #10" (html) (in English, Portuguese, Latin). Associação Campo Arqueológico de Tavira, Tavira, Portugal. Retrieved on 2008-12-4.