Editing Iberian Peninsula (section)

==Prehistory==
{{Main|Prehistoric Iberia}}

===Palaeolithic===
The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited by members of the ''[[Homo]]'' genus for at least 1.2&nbsp;million years as remains found in the sites in the [[Atapuerca Mountains]] demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of [[Gran Dolina]], where six [[hominini|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 [[Before Present|BP]], during the [[Lower Paleolithic]] period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BP, during the [[Middle Paleolithic]] period, the last glacial event began and the Neanderthal [[Mousterian]] culture was established. Around 37,000 BP, during the [[Upper Paleolithic]], the Neanderthal [[Châtelperronian]] cultural period began. Emanating from [[Southern France]], this culture extended into the north of the peninsula. It continued to exist until around 30,000 BP, when Neanderthal man faced extinction.

About 40,000 years ago, [[anatomically modern humans]] entered the Iberian Peninsula from across the Pyrenees. On the Iberian Peninsula, modern humans developed a series of different cultures, such as the [[Aurignacian]], [[Gravettian]], [[Solutrean]] and [[Magdalenian]] cultures, some of them characterized by the complex forms of the [[art of the Upper Paleolithic]].

===Neolithic===
During the [[Neolithic Europe|Neolithic expansion]], various [[megalithic]] cultures developed in the Iberian Peninsula.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Rubricatum/article/viewFile/270071/357640 |title=Redes y expansión del Neolítico en la Península Ibérica |first=Bernat |last=Martí Oliver |year=2012 |access-date=1 September 2018 |journal=Rubricatum. Revista del Museu de Gavà |issue=5 |issn=1135-3791 |pages=549–553 |language=es |publisher=Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert}}</ref> An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the [[Cardium pottery|Cardium culture]], also extended its influence to the eastern coasts of the peninsula, possibly as early as the 5th millennium BCE. These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the [[Iberians|Iberian civilization]].

As is the case for most of the rest of Southern Europe, the principal ancestral origin of modern Iberians are [[Early European Farmers]] who arrived during the Neolithic. The large predominance of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b, common throughout [[Western Europe]], is testimony to a considerable input from various waves of (predominantly male) [[Western Steppe Herders]] from the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] during the Bronze Age. Iberia experienced a significant genetic turnover, with 100% of the paternal ancestry and 40% of the overall ancestry being replaced by peoples with steppe-related ancestry.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Olalde |first1=Iñigo |last2=Mallick |first2=Swapan |display-authors=1 |date=15 March 2019 |title=The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |publisher=[[American Association for the Advancement of Science]] |volume=363 |issue=6432 |pages=1230–1234 |doi=10.1126/science.aav4040  |pmc=6436108 |pmid=30872528 |bibcode=2019Sci...363.1230O |ref={{harvid|Olalde et al.|2019}}}}</ref>

===Chalcolithic===
<!--[[File:Peña Escrita Fuencaliente (Ciudad Real).jpg|thumb|[[Iberian schematic art]] in Peña Escrita]]-->
[[File:Los Millares recreacion cuadro.jpg|thumb|A model recreating the Chalcolithic settlement of Los Millares]]
In the [[Chalcolithic]] ({{circa}}&nbsp;3000 BCE), a series of complex cultures developed that would give rise to the peninsula's [[first civilization]]s and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]], [[Middle East]] and [[North Africa]]. Around 2800 – 2700 BCE, the [[Beaker culture]], which produced the ''Maritime Bell Beaker'', probably originated in the vibrant copper-using communities of the [[Tagus]] estuary and spread from there to many parts of western Europe.<ref name=case>{{cite book|last=Case|first=H|title='Beakers and Beaker Culture' Beyond Stonehenge: Essays on the Bronze Age in honour of Colin Burgess|year=2007|publisher=Oxbow|location=Oxford|pages=237–254}}</ref>

===Bronze Age===
The Bronze Age began on the Iberian Peninsula in 2100 cal. BC according to radiocarbon datings of several key sites.

[[Bronze Age]] cultures developed beginning {{circa}}&nbsp;1800 BCE,<ref>{{cite book |title=Caminos hacia la complejidad: el Calcolítico en la región cantábrica |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qSmCsApcrw8C&pg=PA72 |first=Roberto |last=Ontañón Peredo |publisher=[[Universidad de Cantabria]] |year=2003 |page=72 |isbn=9788481023466}}</ref> when the culture of [[Los Millares]] was followed by that of [[El Argar]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://gredos.usal.es/jspui/bitstream/10366/127681/1/Del_Calcolitico_al_Bronce_antiguo_en_el_.pdf |title=Del Calcolítico al Bronce antiguo en el Guadalquivir inferior. El cerro de San Juan (Coria del Río, Sevilla) y el 'Modelo de Reemplazo' |issn=0514-7336 |doi=10.14201/zephyrus2015761538 |first1=Daniel |last1=García Rivero |first2=José Luis |last2=Escacena Carrasco |date=July–December 2015 |access-date=1 September 2018 |journal=Zephyrus |volume=76 |publisher=[[Universidad de Salamanca]] |pages=15–38 |language=es|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www2.uned.es/geo-1-historia-antigua-universal/NOTICIAS/Recreacion_de_los_Millares.htm |first=Dra. Ana Mª |last=Vázquez Hoys |date=15 May 2005 |access-date=1 September 2018 |journal=Revista Terrae Antiqvae |language=es |title=Los Millares |publisher=[[UNED]] |editor-first=José Luis |editor-last=Santos |archive-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522084636/https://www2.uned.es/geo-1-historia-antigua-universal/NOTICIAS/Recreacion_de_los_Millares.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> During the Early Bronze Age, southeastern Iberia saw the emergence of important settlements, a development that has compelled some archeologists to propose that these settlements indicate the advent of state-level social structures.<ref>{{Cite book|year=2019|title=The Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula. From the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age|page=227<!--227–292-->|doi=10.1017/9781316286340.007|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|first=Katina T.|last=Lillios|chapter=The Emergence of Ranked Societies. The Late Copper Age To Early Bronze Age (2,500 – 1,500 BCE)|series=Cambridge World Archaeology |isbn=978-1-107-11334-3 |s2cid=240899082}}</ref> From this centre, bronze metalworking technology spread to other cultures like the [[Bronze of Levante]], [[South-Western Iberian Bronze]] and [[Las Cogotas]].

Preceded by the Chalcolithic sites of Los Millares, the [[Argaric culture]] flourished in southeastern Iberia in from 2200 BC to 1550 BC,<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=From systems of power to networks of knowledge: the nature of El Argar culture (southeastern Iberia, c. 2200–1500 BC)|first=Borja|last=Legarra Herrero|pages=47–48|editor-first=Lin|editor-last=Foxhall|publisher=[[Oxbow Books]]|year=2021|location=Oxford|title=Interrogating Networks Investigating networks of knowledge in antiquity|isbn=978-1-78925-627-7}}</ref> when depopulation of the area ensued along with disappearing of copper–bronze–arsenic metallurgy.{{Sfn|Carrión|Fuentes|González-Sampériz|Sánchez-Quirante|2007|p=1472}} The most accepted model for El Argar has been that of an early state society, most particularly in terms of class division, exploitation, and coercion,<ref>{{Cite journal|pages=209–210|last=Chapman|first=R|year=2008|title=Producing Inequalities: Regional Sequences in Later Prehistoric Southern Spain|journal=[[Journal of World Prehistory]]|volume=21|issue=3–4|doi=10.1007/s10963-008-9014-y|s2cid=162289282 }}</ref> with agricultural production, maybe also human labour, controlled by the larger hilltop settlements,{{Sfn|Chapman|2008|pp=208–209}} and the elite using violence in practical and ideological terms to clamp down on the population.{{Sfn|Legarra Herrero|2021|p=52}} Ecological degradation, landscape opening, fires, pastoralism, and maybe tree cutting for mining have been suggested as reasons for the collapse.<ref>{{Cite journal|journal=[[Quaternary Science Reviews]]|doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2007.03.013|volume=26|year=2007|page=1472|title=Holocene environmental change in a montane region of southern Europe with a long history of human settlement|first1=J.S.|last1=Carrión|first2=N.|last2=Fuentes|first3=P.|last3=González-Sampériz|first4=L.|last4=Sánchez-Quirante|first5=J.C.|last5=Finlayson|first6=S.|last6=Fernández|first7=A.|last7=Andrade|issue=11–12 |bibcode=2007QSRv...26.1455C }}</ref>

The culture of the ''[[motillas]]'' developed an early system of groundwater supply plants (the so-called ''motillas'') in the upper [[Guadiana]] basin (in the southern ''meseta'') in a context of extreme aridification in the area in the wake of the [[4.2-kiloyear event|4.2-kiloyear climatic event]], which roughly  coincided with the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. Increased precipitation and recovery of the water table from about 1800 BC onward should have led to the forsaking of the ''motillas'' (which may have flooded) and the redefinition of the relation of the inhabitants of the territory with the environment.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The hydrogeological and paleoclimatic factors in the Bronze Age Motillas Culture of La Mancha (Spain): the first hydraulic culture in Europe|first1=Luis Benítez de|journal=[[Hydrogeology Journal]]|year=2017|volume=25|doi=10.1007/s10040-017-1607-z|last1=Lugo Enrich|first2=Miguel|last2=Mejías|issue=7 |issn=1435-0157|page=1933; 1946|bibcode=2017HydJ...25.1931B |hdl=20.500.12468/512 |s2cid=134088522 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>