The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler

Volume 4, the Medieval World

Episode 41, the Battle of Las Navas the Telossa. Oh, yeah. The south of the modern country of Spain may have been one of the last places of Neanderthal occupation

before the area became exclusively occupied by Homo sapiens in the various Stone Age cultures.

Occupation of the Iberian Peninsula following the Neolithic Revolution

is very evident at sites such as Marroke-S-Bajos near the modern city of Hayen,

which demonstrates a sedentary and developed agricultural society.

The site of this episode's battle is around 35 miles north of Hayen. It's also around 150 miles south of the modern Spanish capital, Madrid.

From around 4,000 years ago, the people of the area became quite advanced miners and metal workers as well as producing large amounts of ceramics and pottery.

By 3,000 years ago Celtic peoples from Central Europe had migrated into the Iberian Peninsula and gave birth

to the unique fusion culture of the Celt Iberians.

During the 1st millennium B.CE, Phoenician traders would establish trading

colonies along the coasts of the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Greek city states would also try to establish trading colonies too, but the first

major invasion of the south of the peninsula was by the Carthaginians, themselves a product for the Phoenician Mediterranean trading colonies.

Carthage was established by the Phoenicians in North Africa, so the journey was comparatively short.

Initially the Carthaginians were comfortable controlling

the southern coastal lands and they did so for many generations.

It was not until the power of the Romans brought them directly into competition with the Carthaginians,

that the Carthaginians looked to take control of as much of the peninsula as possible.

Eventually the Romans would come and they would successfully remove the Carthaginians from the peninsula entirely.

The Romans would effectively control the peninsula for the next 600 years.

...