History

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="181d8c00dduajq.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="id194.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Geography"><U>Geography</U></A></div> <div> <B>History</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id196.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Environment"><U>Environment</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id299.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="References"><U>References</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <TABLE BORDER="6" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="151" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#FFFF00" BORDERCOLORDARK="#999999" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" BGCOLOR=#0099CC > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 99 ><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id192.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Guadiana River"><U><IMG SRC="2057c5d0.jpg" border=0 width="124" height="93" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFF99" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#0066FF" FACE="Arial" ><B> Roteiros Fluviais      PORTUGAL      River Pilots </B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#333399" FACE="Arial" >   </FONT>  |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" Roteiros Fluviais PORTUGAL Ri"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> back to  <A HREF="id192.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Guadiana River"><U><B>Guadiana River</B></U></A></div> <div> History</div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="755" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" BGCOLOR=#FFFF99 > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 2036 WIDTH="749"><div> 800.000 years ago the Homo Erectus sread over the Iberian Peninsula. In the Guadiana basin they appear vestiges of Neanderthal's tribes 100.000 years old and the Cro-Magnon with 35.000 years.</div> <div> Many authors defend that the Megalithic culture was propagated from the peninsula, whose older unit is the Lavajo's menhir in the neighborhoods of Alcoutim, with a height of 3,14m and that dates from the final Neolithic period.</div> <div> The setting of primitive tribes on the river banks was due to the direct access to water for food, agriculture and fishing as a protein complement for hunting and shepherding.</div> <div> These tribes started very early to use the hydric resources and to sail.</div> <div> The first boats were fluctuating tree trunks to witch they grabbed, then they made pirogues, and first with their hands and then with other instruments they learnt to impel them and to use the wind, and later ventured out to sea.</div> <bR> <div> Recent studies of mitochondrial DNA Lineages in Mertola's population suggest a movement of people of North of Africa and middle East through the Mediterranean  basin, reflecting ancient important trade centers as attractors for people migration<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Verdana" >.</FONT></div> <div> 3100 years ago, the first traces of Phoenicians appeared from costal regions of the south, that came from the other side of the Mediterranean in boats that were up to 30 meters long. </div> <div> The naval shipyards of Sidon and Tiro built the best ships of the time with the famous cedars of Lebanon. The pharaohs ordered ships there and even organzed expeditions like the circumnavigation of Africa by Necho II in the   7th century BC.</div> <div> But a long time before it was already known that these cedars of Lebanon had been used for the construction of Keops's bark in the III millennium BC and for the expeditions to the Punt region, Somalia, and the most famous was the one made by the Hatchesput queen in the XV century BC. </div> <div> Both the Phoenicians and later the Greeks founded fortified commercial centres, preferably in the sheltered estuaries reaching the superior influence zone of tides like Mértola, Castro Marim, the Phoenician trading post of Balsa in Tavira, the Phoenician trading post of Abdul in the Sado river in Alcácer do Sal and the Santa Olaia roman castle, 3 km away from Montemor o Velho in the mouth of the Mondego river.</div> <div> They taught the people that lived close to the river, metallurgy, pottery and all the conservation industry necessary for their expeditions, that they traded for artefacts and technologies from the other side of the Mediterranean.   </div> <div>                          <IMG SRC="20725610.png" border=0 width="549" height="353" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> </div> <div> Phoenician trade boat, (autor's recreation, from an Egyptian relief of around 1400 BC, at the tomb of Kenamon at Thebes, which shows Phoenician ships unloading in an Egyptian port).</div> <bR> <div> They came in search of Iberian gold, copper and iron, whose age they started in the Peninsula. </div> <div> Here they discovered the force of the tides to push them to sheltered zones up the interior of the rivers and next to the mineral beds that they looked for like Alcoutim and Mértola.</div> <div> We forcibly have to find a likeness between Phoenicians and Portuguese in their expansion to the sea, one and the others were surrounded by powerful civilizations, the first ones expanded commerce in the Mediterranean and the seconds globalised it. Both were great sailors!  </div> <bR> <div> The cultural legacy of this period in the Iberian Peninsula is owed more to the Phoenicians, whose presence was much more intense than the Greek, and according to Mattoso and Serrão (historians) can be divided in 4 basic areas:</div> <div> 1 - The metallurgy of the iron (that very slowly spread to far away zones from the Phoenician centres) </div> <div> 2 - The pottery (the potter wheel and the adoption of decorative techniques and painted motives) </div> <div> 3 - The increase of exploration of natural resources (mining, agriculture, wine, oil) marine resources and dying techniques (introduction of amphoras) </div> <div> 4 - The transformation of social and ideological order (power concentration).</div> <div> The Roman period follows between the 3 rd century BC and the IV century AC with the Romans founding a powerful empire based on their warlike force and colonizing a  great part of Europe and all the Mediterranean.  Their naval power destroys all Phoenician resistance. They build bridges and roads that allow a fast access to all places in the empire and an armed naval force that protects the intense maritime commerce from an always present piracy.</div> <div> The Guadiana that served as a phoenician penetration way up to Mértola is now a Roman way and ends up having an important role in the territorial structuring oh the Iberian Peninsula. It separated the Roman provinces of <I>Bética</I> in <I>Luzitânia</I>, which with the Arabs, was called Al Andaluz and Al Gharb and currently Andalusia and Algarve.</div> <div> The Roman settling used the potentialities of the river building the Álamo's dam, villages and port structures in its margins that supported commerce with all the Mediterranean empire.</div> <bR> <div> The Germanic invasions that followed, weakened local defences and opened the doors to the Arab invasion coming from the Magreb that, in 3 years, covered almost the entire peninsula in the 8 th century. After 4 centuries of pacific cohabitation, Christian reconquest is initiated. It lasted almost 3 centuries, and was concluded at the end of the 15 th century.</div> <div> The Roman settling left us a road net, a culture, a language, the Roman law and the imperial dream, but it was the Arabs who  left an advanced scientific knowledge of medicine, cartography and astronomy that made the Discoveries possible.  </div> <div> The Christian inspiration, that led to the end of the pacific cohabitation between the two religions, also guided the discoveries of the two peninsular peoples who at a certain time shared the World in the two largest ever colonial empires.</div> <div> Both the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir “Wadi al Kabir” (great river) run in the territory that was the meeting point of the great Mediterranean civilizations: Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Arab. When the Greeks arrived here they were impressed with the Tartessos's civilization that inhabited these lands.</div> <div> In the X15 th century it is the Algarve people first, and that of Andalusia later, that leave to discover the way to India, the new “Eldorado” as already had happened with Iberia for the ancient people.</div> <bR> <div> The Arabs had been a joining people between the East and the West, had developed an intense commerce, taking devices and technologies from one side to the other at the same time that they developed a pragmatic scientific knowledge, less philosophical than their predecessors and more technological like chemistry, medicine, astronomy, cartography and seamanship that allowed them a business supremacy in the Mediterranean, as well as in the Indic until the arrival of the Portuguese.</div> <div> Up to  the 19 th century oceanic ships still arrived at the Guadiana and later fluvial steam boats careered between Mértola and Vila Real de St. António. </div> <div> The Pomarão port kept intense activity with mineral transport boats up to 1965 when the explorations were closed.</div> <div> The fishing activity is disappearing but there is an increasing recreation and tourist navigation, throughout the river, mostly after the installation  of some port infrastructures in the villages close to the river.</div> <div> With the great pressure of the tourist companies we will have life easier in the future. </div> <div> Mértola will come back to be a busy port as it used to be.</div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>