Program > By author > Chala Aldana Döbereiner

The lower Guadalquivir valley is one of the historical hotspots of the Mediterranean region. Favoured above all by a mild climate, good agricultural conditions, large deposits of raw materials in the immediate vicinity and a convenient location, it has been one of the economic and political centres of the Iberian Peninsula for several millennia. Time and again, the region's advantages attracted external interests, including above all the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans and Arabs. Despite the attention it has always received, relatively little is known about the early period of this cultural region in particular. Since 2013, research on the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) has been undertaken at various sites in the Seville area, with interdisciplinary teams from the Universities of Tübingen and Seville as part of the Collaborative Research Centre 1070 Resource Cultures. The aim was to record the genesis of the landscape in connection with the use of resources as the basis for the functioning of the societies there. The surveys, excavations and scientific investigations carried out for this purpose have yielded promising results for a better understanding of the course of relevant developments.