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I'm Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal.

I work at the Spanish National Research
Council.
And I'm not the typical Spanish
archeologist, I
guess, because I work on the archeology of
the contemporary past, the archeology of
the twentieth
and twenty-first century, and I also work
in Africa.
But I think that these two issues related
very much
to the archeology of Hyperion to the
archeology of Spain.
The archeology of Africa might sound a
little bit remote or
somebody working in Spain or somebody
interested in the archeology of Spain.
But the thing is that Africa and Iberia on
the
Iberian Peninsula have had various strong
relations since prehistoric times.
And these relations that are, we are now
appreciating better
thanks to field work, especially, of
course in Southern Spain.
Recent excavations, for example, have
discovered
that people living in the Copper Age.
In the third million BC were already
having trading relations with
people in sub-Saharan Africa, in places so
far away as probably Senegal or Mali.
The kind of things that they were
exchanging.
well, [SOUND] things like gold and things
like ivory.
We know for example that people living in
Southern Spain were acquiring ivory,
[UNKNOWN] ivory, and other kinds of ivory
from these sub-Saharan countries.
Three 3,000 years before Christ.
So this is a something really exciting
to sprawl these connections that have been
downplayed.
And all the things because of nationalist
issues, because Spain is a European
country,
and of course we are interested to be
related to the rest of Europe.
Not to Africa, because it, it sounds that
being related to Africa is somehow
The meaning for Spaniards or at least it
has been like that for a long time.
And this relations we frequently have
continued, I
mean of course we have relations with
Africa today.
But we have very strong relations with sub
Sahara in Africa during the Middle
Ages that we are only now starting
to explore from an archeological point of
view.
For example the capital.
One of the most important capitals
[INAUDIBLE] of Africa during the 16th
century, Timbuktu, was conquered by a
Spaniard during in the late 16th century.
And this is a very interesting story
because it was a Spanish, a Christian
renegade that joined the Muslim forces of
Morocco to conquer the city, and this is.
These histories they have been forgotten
they been
enlightened in the nationalist history of
the Spain
and these are histories that archeologists
can recover
also by doing work in Spain and in Africa.
On the archeology of the contemporary past
its
also very pertinent to study, explore the
past of
Spain because the Pacifists deem the
recent history
of Spain has also been concealed in
different ways.
Because Spain has a very troubled history
during the 20th Century.
It suffered a terrible civil war in which
almost half a million people were killed.
It later suffered a dictatorship that
lasted 40 years.
These these terrible events, they had
produced a huge archeological record.
And at the same time this huge
archeological record
had been silenced, has been forgotten, and
has been concealed.
And it is only now that we archaeologist,
but also the
Hispanic society at large are starting to
recover this past too.
Excavate literally unmetaphorically this
past, to understand the history of
our country better and in a more in a fair
way.
The these huge archaeological records to
which I refer, it is of course,
mass graves mass graves that Contained
[SOUND] bodies of, of thousands.
Tens of thousands of people that were
killed in the 1930s, 1940s
and the early 1950s by the dictatorship
and by fascist militia men.
But it is also another kind of
archeological record
the remains of concentration camps, the
remains of prisons.
Off trenches battlefields that speak about
a violent a violent past in Spain.
Its important to to have very present not
just to better
understand the past but also to construct
a better more democratic future.
So I guess that this is the connections
between these two issues I just mentioned
the archaeology.
Of Africa in the archaeological
contemporary past
is, is all about past at have
been lighted, that have been forgotten,
and
the we are archaeologists have
responsibility to recover.
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