Ancient History of Spain

Prehistoric Iberia

15,000 BCE

The earliest record of hominids living in Western Europe has been found in the Spanish cave of Atapuerca; a flint tool found there dates from 1.4 m. years ago, and early human fossils date to roughly 1.2 m. years ago. Cro-Magnon humans began arriving in the Iberian Peninsula from north of the Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The most conspicuous sign of prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the northern Spanish cave of Altamira, which were done c. 15,000 BC.

Greek colonies

575 BCE

Greeks established trading settlements along the eastern and southern coast such as Emporion. They were responsible for the name Iberia.

Roman Hispania

206 BCE

The Roman conquest of Hispania was a process by which the Roman Republic seized the Carthaginian territories in the south and east in 206 BC (during the Second Punic War) and then gradually extended control over most of the Iberian Peninsula without annexations. It was completed after the fall of the Republic (27 BC), by Augustus, the first Roman emperor, who annexed the whole of Hispania to the Roman Empire in 19 BC. Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula.

Roman Hispania

Period: 206 BCE to 19

Roman conquest of Hispania