Everything Andalucia Headquarters

The first people to call Andalucia home were the Neandertal humans who finally became extinct at the southern tip of Andalucia, in Goreham's Cave in Gibraltar. Their presence in other parts of Spain is well known, but in Andalucia they lived until quite recently in evolutionary terms, actually co-existing with our ancestors, and possibly even interbreeding with them.

At Benaojan and Nerja, there are cave paintings that date back as much as 30,000 years created by modern humans, and both of these caves are open to the public to see stick figure drawings (some of the earliest) and more advanced drawings of animals and humans in various poses (mode modern), though this is by no means the only reason to visit these caves, the other being the impressive natural formations, especially in Nerja Cave which has the largest column in the world.

Humanity eventually moved out of their caves, and started to build stone burial chambers known as Dolmen Structures around 8,000 years ago. these burial chambers are in most places not very impressive, however in Antequera an advanced society erected huge dolmen structures using multi-tonne blocks of hewn stone, which were aligned with the stars and mountain formations and were probably used for religious purposes rather than burials.

Around the time the Phoenicians were building their empire they discovered the western edge of the Mediterranean and built Cadiz, widely recognised to be the oldest city in Europe, older even than Athens or Rome.

After the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, all of Iberia came under Roman control, and most of Andalusia fell into the Baetica province and became an important part of the empire, minting its own coins and producing wines and wheat for the citizens of Rome.

By 711AD, Rome was finished and Europe splintered under the rule of many smaller kingdoms, with Iberia under the influence of warring Visigothic lords. The time was ripe for a new order which came in the form of an expanding Islamic caliphate and their armies from North Africa. For 800 years most of Andalucia was Moorish, but in 1492 the last Muslim kingdom on the peninsula fell to Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic monarchs of Spain.