Iberia

A deep history of Iberia examines the waves of conquest and cultural developments on the Iberian peninsula. Agriculture was imported to Iberia from the Fertile Crescent region of Southwest Asia and included animal husbandry and the use of pack animals. Autonomous cultural developments of native Iberians were stimulated by maritime powers that sailed west along the Mediterranean: the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans, each growing in their imperial reach and providing a base for later political and economic developments. Iberians also took advantage of their geographical setting on a peninsular hinge between the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds, which connected two major maritime spheres of interaction and saw the development of hybrid ships increasingly suited to open ocean crossing. Following the collapse of imperial Rome, Iberia fluctuated between Christian and Islamic rule, with the former emerging victorious after a centuries-long program of national unification known as the Reconquista, or “reconquest.” Crops introduced by Muslims and administrative strategies implemented by Christian kingdoms in frontier regions were direct predecessors of the plantation-like economies eventually imposed on the Americas.