War and city size: The asymmetric effects of the Spanish Civil War

Populations are affected by shocks of different kinds, and wars, a priori, may be among the most prominent. This article studies the effect of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) shock on the distribution of population, especially on cities. One of the main contributions of this study is that it underlines the importance of distinguishing between winning and losing sides, an aspect which until now has been largely overlooked. While previous research on war shocks has also tended to be concerned with inter-state wars, this paper concentrates on a civil war. We take advantage of a new, long-term, annual data set. Our results show that, overall, the Spanish Civil War did not have a significant effect on city growth. However, we also find a significant and negative effect in the growth of cities that aligned themselves with the losing side. These results are robust to heterogeneity in the effect of the war shock, measured as war severity and duration. Although short lived, the temporary effect on growth results in a permanent effect on the size of cities on the losing side.     

THE ACEHÚCHE GOLD TORC: GOLD AND SACRED LAND ON THE SHORES OF THE TAGUS RIVER (CÁCERES,WESTERN SPAIN)

This article describes the important discovery of a Late Bronze Age gold torc that was unearthed in a field of Acehúche (Cáceres, Spain). It was buried underneath some rocks at a site near a river crossing over the Tagus river. In its immediate vicinity, archaeological remains dating from the Copper Age to the Late Bronze Age have been found, which indicates the long use of this crossing. Until recently here, there existed a ferry and a chapel; and the place went by the toponym of the Dehesa de San Cristóbal. Legend too has it that the water from the river had curative properties. All of these components have maintained the sacred nature of the spot, otherwise transformed over the course of time, and reflect an earlier sacred landscape with quite ancient roots.     

Assessing place-based identities in the early Middle Ages: a proposal for post-Roman Iberia

Sociological models of place-based identity can be used to better understand the social dynamics of local communities and how they interact with their surroundings. This paper explores how these theoretical models of belonging to a place, in tandem with communal cognitive maps, can be applied to post-Roman contexts, taking the Iberian Peninsula in the Visigothic period (sixth–eighth centuries) as a preliminary case study. We argue that this approach can give us not only a more complex understanding of community agencies but also allows us to reconsider the social context for past social interactions. Furthermore, it will open a new archaeological perspective for future work on the relations between groups and individuals with their built, social, and natural environments.     

The study of spatiotemporal patterns integrating temporal uncertainty in late prehistoric settlements in northeastern Spain

This paper explores the integration of two variables that are typically difficult to use in spatial analysis: time and uncertainty. A framework is constructed to analyse mid- and long-term variation in settlement dynamics during late prehistory in northeastern Spain. Following previous proposals, an aoristic model is built with ceramic dating to feed a Monte Carlo simulation that explores the case study using a discrete time-step approach. At the same time, available radiometric dating is used to validate the accuracy of the simulation results. Departing from the static analysis of spatial variables, the model proposes a new approach by which researchers can address temporal uncertainty. The results show that patterns detected by classical spatial analysis can be produced by artefacts derived from the division of time in chronological units instead of discrete time periods. The model is also used to compare a priori identical variations whose rate of change, when analysed with this approach, is revealed to be completely different.     

Neutrality and submarine warfare: Germany and Spain during the First World War

The Spanish government maintained official neutrality during the Great War because deviating from neutrality would supposedly endanger the nation’s already limited political and social stability and even threaten the survival of the monarchic regime. In August 1914 there were no direct Spanish interests in the conflict and no benefit to be obtained from any intervention by Spain, which was very weak in military terms and in the international arena. Nevertheless, Spain’s geographic location and its commercial dependence on the Entente made it especially vulnerable to the pressures of France and Great Britain, both of which attempted to take advantage of the services that Spain could offer in the economic war; Spain’s importance increased with the prolongation of the fight. Germany, in contrast, could not hope for more from Spain than its strict neutrality because of its highly important political and economic ties with the Entente and its defencelessness before England and France, from which Germany could not protect it. Because Germany could not wait for Spain’s participation next to her, the primary target of German diplomacy had to be to resist the influence of the Entente and maintain Spanish neutrality while preventing Spain from inclining towards favouring the Allies. To achieve this objective, Berlin fed, with vague promises, the idea that a Spanish collaboration would be rewarded with the annexation of some territories. On this basis, we can begin to study German–Spanish relations during the Great War, which came to be determined by incidents that were caused by the submarine war. The dependence on the Entente also helps to explain the last evolution of the relations between Germany and Spain, which could follow no other policy than that imposed by the final development of the war: taking up a position near the winners and distancing from, and nearly rupturing ties with, Germany. Using both Spanish and German documentation allows us to reach different conclusions that aim to contribute substantially to understanding the relationship between Spain and Germany during the Great War.     

Exploitation,fascist violence and social cleansing: a study of Franco's concentration camps from a comparative perspective

One of the most noticeable topics within recent Spanish historiography is the analysis of processes of mass violence. Salient among these were the Franco concentration camps, a violent re-educational system made up of more than 180 camps, 104 of which were permanent. The camps operated from 1936 until 1947, under the control of Franco's army, with its corresponding regime of forced labour and exploitation of prisoners of war. Half a million Spaniards and Europeans experienced first hand the Spanish version of the fascist concentration-camp system. This article offers an analysis of the inside history of Franco's concentration camps and then locates them comparatively within a theoretical and empirical Fascist model of internment, exploitation and violence.     

Biological mineral content in Iberian skeletal cremains for control of diagenetic factors employing multivariate statistics

The aim of this study was to define a strategy for a correct selection of bone samples by employing inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) for reconstructing the biological mineral content in bones through the determination of major elements, trace elements and Rare Earth Elements (REE, lanthanides) in skeletal cremains of ancient Iberians (III–II B.C), discovered in the Necropolis of Corral de Saus (Moixent, Valencia) between 1972 and 1979. The biological mineral content was determined taking into account diagenetic factors. A control method for a better reading of results was applied. To explore large geochemical datasets and to reduce the number of variables, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used, thus, providing a deeper insight into the structure of the variance of the dataset. PCA shows that the elemental profiles of bone and soil samples are clearly different. Bone samples obtained from the outer bone layer were shown to have a different elemental composition; more similar to soil samples than samples of the inner bone layer. PCA scores and loadings plots were preferred to dendrograms obtained using Cluster Analysis, due to the limits of the latter one to appreciate the spatial ordering of samples. Partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), a frequently used supervised classification method, was applied to differentiate between degradation states of bone samples. PLS-DA results obtained in this study confirmed that changes derived from different burning conditions were associated with transformations in the mineral part of the bones. Accordingly, carbonized bones can be differentiated from cremated bones. Class assignment of bone samples with uncertain thermal conditions in dependence on their elemental composition has shown to be feasible. Consequently, for biochemical-archaeological studies the analysis and statistical classification of carbonized and cremated archaeological bones, as well as those exposed to unknown thermal conditions together with experiments in modern bones, are recommended.     

An improved PCR method for endogenous DNA retrieval in contaminated Neandertal samples based on the use of blocking primers

Neandertal skeletal remains are usually contaminated with modern human DNA derived from handling and washing of the specimens during excavation. Despite the fact that the distinct Neandertal haplotypes allow the design of specific primer pairs, for instance in most of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable region 1 (HVR1), the human contaminants can often outnumber the endogenous DNA, thus preventing a successful retrieval of Neandertal sequences. We have developed a novel PCR method, based on the use of blocking primers that preferentially bind to modern human contaminant DNA and block their amplification, and greatly improve the efficiency of Neandertal DNA retrieval. We tested the method in four El Sidrón Neandertal samples (two teeth and two bone fragments) with different contamination levels and taphonomic conditions, and we have been able to significantly increase the Neandertal yield from figures around 25.23% (5–69.6%) up to 90.18% (75.3–100%).     

Recovering traditions in the digital era: the use of blimps for modelling the archaeological cultural heritage

Driven by progress in sensor technology, algorithms and data processing capabilities, the recording and 3D virtual modelling of complex archaeological sites is currently receiving much attention. Nevertheless, the problem remains the huge effort and costs that have to be invested to obtain realistic models. Besides on-site measurements, much time is often spent in manually rebuilding the whole site with a CAD package or a 3D-modelling tool.