Póster del symposium. Cuadro del poster:  La Galerna. Autor: Luis Tudela. Reproducido con autorización del autor

Introduction

 

The International Symposium “People of the sea. History and Archaeology in the Atlantic Arc Coast” aims to become the focus where to share and reunite several studies that analyze human settlement on the coast space between Cantabrian and Atlantic coast in the Iberian Peninsula as well as the French Atlantic coast.

In addition, we will welcome on this meeting those papers focused on human settlements (on different geographical frames), linked by a relationship of any kind (commercial, cultural).

This symposium will approach the subject from the perspective of the different geographical frames. To do so, the lectures will be from the French Aquitaine, Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia and Portugal.

 Likewise, all the researchers are welcome to sing up and turn papers up (oral communications or posters) for the symposium sessions. The deadline for registration is October the 19th, 2009. The symposium is to be held in the Asturias Maritime Museum, located in Luanco.

The relationship between the man and the sea is almost as ancient as the presence of the man on Earth. The sea worked as a pivotal element for these first communities, because from it they got their sustenance as well as their spiritual comfort.

The connection between the man and the sea will thick from the moment the man  grows able to sail the sea, and uses it as a way to reach other communities. This relationship between man and environment will become very close and  will stay untill today.

The first Neolithic sailings will start a history of communication between different communities, communication beyond goods trade. We can conclude that in this first ships travelled not only people and their goods, but ideas that were also traded. The first evidences of these exchanges on the Cantabrian coast are noticed in the Age of Bronze, during the so called Atlantic Bronze Period, a historical period in which the first trading relationships between the northern territories of the Iberian Peninsula with the Breton territories and the British islands are known.

From onwards , this sporadic contacts will become a constant , particularly after the conquest by Rome of the Northwest of the Peninsula. The integration of the Cantabrian area inside the commercial maritime routes is a fact demonstrated with the presence of several maritime ports and manufacturing spaces (salting and saline industries) destined to the economic exploitation of the sea.

 

These spots will never be abandoned by the medieval monarchies, but transformed in maritime villas and reused once and again as a mean to favor the contact with the continental territories.

 

The commercial ports of the Atlantic French front and the Irish territories, and the South of England  will return to be areas of trading with the ports of the Atlantic area. The unification of the different peninsular monarchies in Modern age will initiate a process of expansion of these maritime villas, that will develop a trade on a bigger scale, even international.

 

The transformation of Spain in an European superpower will enable the storming of Spanish coasts. It will be in this period when the cities will start putting fortifications on their perimeters, following the new evolutions on military defense and fortifications. From this moment the Cantabrian coast will be the focus of the relationships between the countries that belong to the Atlantic Arch. The manifestations of these contacts are not only of an economic kind, but also of a social, artistic and ideological ones.

 

 

 The presence of archaeological evidence that confirms the trading relationships between the Cantabrian ports of the Iberian Peninsula with the Atlantic French front in the Middle Ages, allows us to assume that the intense relationship  established between the North of the Roman Spain and the Gallic Aquitaine do not disappear in Medieval Ages. Likewise in Modern Age is known a constant trade between these coastal spaces, confirmed by the presence of archaeological evidence such as tobacco pipes made of clay, that can be dated in the XVIIth and XVIIIth century.

Correo:   info@symposiumgentesdelmar.com

Título: Molín del Viento. Autor: Luis Tudela.

Reproducido con autorización del autor

Fotografía de restos de embarcaciones en El Dique, Luanco (Concejo de Gozón)

2º Póster del symposium. Cuadro del poster:  La pesca de la ballena. Autor: Luis Tudela. Reproducido con autorización del autor