Munibe Antropologia-Arkeologia (Dec 2020)
Arqueología de la Primera Guerra Carlista (1833-1839): Una introducción
Abstract
El estallido y largo desarrollo de la I Guerra Carlista (1833-1839) supuso la construcción de una amplia variedad de elementos que a día de hoy constituyen un rico patrimonio arquitectónico y arqueológico: Durante los más de 7 años de guerra, carlistas y liberales recurrieron a la construcción de fuertes, trincheras, campamentos, torres… para alzarse con la victoria. La guerra no solo creó elementos ex novo, sino que muchos yacimientos de cronologías anteriores fueron modificados por el conflicto. A pesar de su multiplicidad, buen estado de conservación e importancia histórica, la arqueología apenas ha estudiado la realidad material de la I Guerra Carlista. Para suplir en parte esta carencia se realiza un primer estudio de conjunto de varios yacimientos de dicho contexto en la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco. _____________________________________________________________________ In 1833, the death of King Fernando VII of Spain led to a dynastic crisis that quickly ran into a civil war, the First Carlist War or Seven Years War (1833-1839). It was a hard, violent and bloody conflict between Carlists and Liberals and in which the civil population was involved. It finished in 1839 with an agreement between the liberal general Espartero and the Carlist Maroto, but in fact, it supposed the victory of the liberals. Many Carlists felt betrayed and marched into exile. Carlism continued going against the liberal government of Madrid from inside and outside Spain, and there would be two more civil wars in 1846, 1872 and several coup d’etats. During the conflict, both sides disrupted the landscape, constructing a large variety of elements: forts, trenches, encampments, fortresses, walls, towers… with the main goal of achieving the victory. The war transformed the appearance of cities and villages and it influenced not only the front line but also at the rear. The conflict not only created new elements, it also affected sites of previous chronologies, creating important stratigraphic phases that supposed the complete transformation of these sites. Nowadays, some of those elements survive and are part of a richly constructed and archaeological heritage. In spite of their abundance, good state of preservation and historical importance, archaeology has not studied the materiality of the First Carlist War. Moreover, most of the elements that survive today are in danger because of the general ignorance about them and the lack of study and preservation strategies. In order to make up for this lack, a first global study of the First Carlist War archaeology is made in this article, based on the analysis of four archaeological sites of that context: the monasteries of San José de la Isla and San Francisco and the medieval villages of Peñacerrada and Salvatierra.
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