The political and scientific influence of Gabriel de Mortillet on the origins of prehistoric research in Spain

Introduction

Gabriel de Mortillet’s influence in Spain during the second half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries was limited to two key aspects. The first was the adaptation of the museum collection classification system, especially that corresponding to the Palaeolithic. Based on his synthesis study of the Musée Préhistorique in Saint Germain-en-Laye (1881), it would remain in force until the end of the third quarter of the 20th century. Before the works of Henri Breuil (1877-1961), it was the interpretative mainstay of the first stages of the prehistory accepted by Spanish scholars, researchers and teachers. This constituted an interesting challenge as, although Mortillet was informed about the development of research in Spain, unlike other contemporary French prehistorians, he did not participate directly in it. In second place was the penetration and subsequent adaptation—derived from the use of the nation and homeland concepts in his publications—of the idea of the existence of an uninterrupted evolutionary line in the history of Spain from prehistory to the present. It defined all the inhabitants of the territory as “Spanish”, regardless of their chronology and the current knowledge available about the social structures to which they belonged.

Mortillet’s thesis, expressed in his book Formation de la Nation Française (1897), would find a fertile field of growth in the patriotic and identity presuppositions in the configuration—on a political and non-scientific basis—of building a new narrative of the Spanish past. This new narrative was intended to unite a social and political system that had become outdated as a result of the political vicissitudes (civil wars, military uprisings, foreign interventions, overthrow of the monarchy, proclamation of the First Republic, the Bourbon restoration, etc.) that occurred in Spain between 1808 to 1874. These upheavals had hindered the country’s political, social and economic development from the beginning of the 19th century onwards, with of the transition from absolutist states to nations with bourgeois liberal/conservative parliamentary political systems. The possibility of using the earliest phases of prehistory as the first links in a unitary historical and phylogenetic discourse—continuous, unbreakable and solid in the face of any internal adversity or external interference—profoundly affected the thinking of a large number of Spanish prehistorians. They would use it as a resource—both before and after the Civil War (1936-1939) and especially during the Franco regime—to define the concepts of the greatness and historical destiny of the Spanish, presenting them as the precursors and examples of European political and social transformation, from the Franco-Cantabrian rock art according to Lluís Pericot García (1899-1978)¹ to the Bell Beaker culture declared in 1939 by Julio Martínez Santa-Olalla (1905-1972) to be the first Spanish empire.² The research guidelines, the dissemination of results, the public presentation of the museum collections and the derived narrative discourses would have an undeniable political content. This was both desired and promoted by the political power as a formula to instil in citizens the ideas of nation, homeland, honour and pride, of belonging to a state headed by the Bourbon monarchy since its restoration in 1874, as a synthesis of historical and racial essences.

The political influence of Gabriel de Mortillet’s thinking

The political background of the nationalist interpretation in Mortillet’s prehistory were strengthened in Spain at the turn of the century due to the need to create new historiographical and interpretive references to face up to a period of identity crisis. Therefore, on 6 June 1911, Amalio Gimeno y Cabañas (1852-1936) (fig. 1), the Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, read before the Senate the text of the bill for the regulation of archaeological excavations in Spain approved by the liberal government presided over by José Canalejas Méndez (1854-1912).³ This was a preliminary step for its analysis in commission and subsequent parliamentary discussion and approval by the Spanish Parliament. In his speech he linked the concepts of “patriotic art” and “national honour” as essential elements that should be studied and defended by archaeological research. He thus endorsed a nationalist and unitary concept of the history of Spain since prehistory by stating that “the homeland, almost completely unexplored, awaits the assiduous work that, revealing the treasures it contains, completes the chain that links the caves of Altamira to the excavations of Medina-Zahara and whose brilliant links are the Lady of Elche, the Sphinx of Balazote, the carvings and mosaics of Ampurias, and the marbles of Itálica.”⁴ The minister included among his examples the stages of Greek colonisation, Roman Hispania, the prolonged development of the successive Hispanic-Muslim political systems, and the peninsular protohistory exemplified in the Iberian culture. He combined the political aspect with a clear reclamatory nuance, both of the objects and the resentment of the foreign domination of archaeological research in Spain. The sculpture of the Lady of Elche was already a national symbol after its discovery in 1897, as well as an object of political and cultural controversy following its purchase and transfer to the Louvre Museum by Pierre Paris (1859-1931). The export of such a national treasure would not have occurred if a law like the one being presented had been in force at the time of the sale.

Through his speech, Gimeno y Cabañas demonstrated that the government, as the conservative and progressive cabinets that had tacitly alternated in power after the Bourbon restoration in 1874 had done previously, continued to build an identity and a cohesive historical account of Spanish society. It defined, with the support of the Real Academia de la Historia y de la Escuela Superior de Diplomática (Royal Academy of History and the Higher Diplomatic School), an uninterrupted line of “Spanishness” that linked prehistory to the present day. This served to present the monarchy of Alfonso XIII (1886-1941) as the embodiment of the traditional values of the Spanish spirit, identified, exemplified and explained in all periods by archaeological research.

The minister hoped to provide structure for a state stressed by dynastic struggles; the loss of the remains of the empire following defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898; a profound economic crisis resulting from Spain’s delay in the industrialising; the dominance of caciquismo and latifundist practices in agricultural productivity; a growing social convulsion as a result of the increase in the working class; the concentration of the population in the main urban centres, where they lived poorly as a consequence of the working conditions imposed by the industrial bourgeoisie and employers’ associations, which had close links to the Crown and the government. There was also a growing nationalism, especially in Catalonia, a part of the country that was demanding greater cultural, economic and political autonomy and was creating its own identity narrative different to that of Spain, using archaeological research to structure its origins as a people linked to the Greek presence and influence in the territory, which had its factual expression in the excavations of the Greek colony of Ampurias initiated by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Barcelona Museums Board in 1908,⁵ actions that would also be spoken of in the debate on the Act.

Gimeno y Cabañas thus recognised that Spain had lagged behind in the use of archaeology as a tool of growing nationalism by not having followed the line of organisational and enunciative action implemented in Europe during the transition from absolutist monarchies to the new nation-states. At that time, the monarchies had to integrate the subjects turned citizens to maintain their exercise of power by adding to the new industrial and agrarian bourgeois classes to which they had been forced to resort in order to face—through the exaltation of nationalism—the political and military storm unleashed by French revolutionary ideals and Napoleonic expansionism.

The creation of national museums and the promotion of research into the past allowed governments to show the population what was considered to be the factual evidence on which the construction of ideological discourse was based. However, in the case of Spain, there was again a delay in the implantation of the model adopted in Europe. The National Archaeological Museum and the Ethnographic Museum were not created (on paper) until March 20, 1867,⁶ and the Antiques section, a designation that reflected the antiquarian and non-archaeological concept of the objectives that would be entrusted to the civil servants in charge of it—the Cuerpo Facultativo de Bibliotecarios, Archiveros y Anticuarios (Association of Librarians, Archivists and Antiquaries-CFBAA)—would have to wait until June 12 of that same year.⁷ The installation of the museum in its definitive location was delayed until work on the Palacio de Bibliotecas y Museos (Palace of Libraries and Museums) had been completed in 1894. It was inaugurated on 5 July 1895, an event described as a key element in the state’s cultural turning point, given that the complex exhibited the history of Spain from its first settlers to the beginning of the contemporary era.⁸

In his markedly patriotic speech to the Senate aimed at defending the need to enact a law that would regulate both the management of archaeological excavations and the fate of the finds, Minister Gimeno y Cabañas cited Gabriel de Mortillet as one of the essential figures of European prehistoric research, along with Charles Lyell (1797-1875), Émile Cartailhac (1845-1921), Henri Breuil and Salomon Reinach (1858-1932). However, these references were not limited to Mortillet’s contributions to the progress of prehistoric archaeology in determining the antiquity of humankind as 220,000 years,⁹ but were also the result of the impact, both scientific and political, of his publication Formation de la Nation Française in 1897 fifteen years before the debates. In it he defined the essence of the French homeland as the consequence of the evolution of a national sentiment dating back to the earliest stages:

il y a eu des mélanges, de très nombreux mélanges, qui sont venus se fondre successivement dans le noyau autochtone. Au lieu de le détruire, ils n’ont fait qu’activer sa vitalité. Ce sont précisément ces mélanges qui ont donné au caractère national ses qualités et ses défauts. Mais, si des éléments fort divers sont groupés, il y a un fait incontestable, c’est que la nationalité est si bien établie, que, sous le rapport du patriotisme, un seul et même cœur bat dans la poitrine de tous les Français !¹⁰

Based on Mortillet’s thinking, in a clear example of distortion of the discourse, since Spanish politicians ignored any reference to Mortillet’s ideas that were contrary to the influence of the Church in society, the governmental discourse was able to combine the Greek, Roman and Muslim presence with the migratory movements documented during prehistory to underpin the formative and explanatory discourse of a Spanish nation. This nation was politically, linguistically and territorially united with the help of Christianity and the doctrinal role of the Catholic Church, yet it needed an ideological regenerationism to replace, with the essences of the past, the loss of the imperial power that had been the basis of national pride since the 16th century, and which at that time was mired in mud, with more pain than glory, in a final attempt to establish a colonial structure in North Africa. The experience of previous attempts to link the political present and the archaeological past through the use of excavations in the Celtiberian town of Numancia sponsored by the RAH (Royal Academy of History)¹¹ had marked a path that the government wished to continue in order to control the factual elements on which to build a new, patriotic account of the history of Spain. Therefore, Gimeno y Cañadas concluded by stating “everything that contributes to clarifying our primitive history and the origin of the peoples who were really the founders of the robust trunk of the Hispanic race should be the object of consideration by every educated person”.¹² During the rapid procedure of the bill through the Congress of Deputies, the minister stressed the nationalist arguments based on the study of representative archaeological remains, for example, of “Numantine heroism”, and the need to include all the information derived from the study of the excavations in a common, unitary narrative at the service of the interests and policies of the state. This demonstrated the true ideological motive of the new legislation and the benefits that were expected to be obtained from controlling the narrative. The Act was passed without major problems on 7 July 1911¹³ and definitive approval was given by the King on 18 January 1912.¹⁴ Along with the regulations based on it, which were drawn up a few months later,¹⁵ it formed the basis of the legislation governing archaeology until it was replaced by the Heritage Act of 1933 passed under the Second Republic (1931-1939). It is ironic that Spanish politicians used Mortillet’s figure in the argument prior to the approval of protectionist legislation when he was against any regulation. That is why it can be seen that the members of the RAH who advised Gimeno and Cabañas only used the part of Mortillet’s ideas that agreed with their argument.

The scientific influence of Gabriel de Mortillet

The reason Minister Gimeno y Cabañas had resorted to the figure of Gabriel de Mortillet in his argument before the Senate was because both the knowledge and influence of his research in Spain had been recognised for decades. His experience in the fields of both education and museography had made him widely known among the academic elites and the most enlightened sectors of the population. On 17 January 1875, Juan Vilanova y Piera (1821-1893) (fig. 2), a key figure in palaeontological and prehistoric research in Spain during the second half of the 19th century, gave his admission speech at the Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences) entitled La importancia y altísima significación de los estudios paleontológicos en todos conceptos considerados (The importance and highest significance of paleontological studies in all considered concepts).¹⁶ In it, among other considerations, he exemplified the importance of Palaeolithic archaeology in analysing the evolution of the human social structures. He included the works of Mortillet, whom he knew not only through his publications, but also from his reiterated participation in the International Congresses of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology, particularly the fourth meeting held in Copenhagen in 1869. Vilanova y Piera attended as the official representative of Spain in the company of Francisco María Tubino (1833-1888), after publishing his first essay, Origen y Antigüedad del Hombre (Origin and Antiquity of Man),¹⁷ in which he had quoted the works of French scholars such Jacques Boucher de Perthes (1788-1868) De l’homme antdiluvien et de ses oeuvres (1860) and Pierre Trémaux (1818-1895) Origine et transformation de l’homme (1865), and also the French language versions of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) De l’origine des espèces (1862); Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) De la place de l’homme dans la nature (1868); Charles Lyell L’Ancienneté de l’homme (1864); John Lubbock (1834-1913) L’homme avant l’histoire (1867); Carl Vogt (1817-1895) Leçons sur l’homme (1865) and Mémoire sur les microcéphales ou hommes-singes (1868); Sven Nilsson (1787-1883) Les habitants primitifs de la Scandinavie : Essai d’ethnographie comparée (1868). Vilanova y Piera was able to explain the development of archaeology in Spain during the previous two decades, taking a special interest in the historiographical discussion on the attribution of megalithic constructions—especially dolmens—to the Celts, in which Mortillet had participated and which had already been the subject of strong disagreements at the Second Congress held in Paris in 1867. The result of what he learned in the congresses and his subsequent study trip would form the basis of his publication Origen, naturaleza y antigüedad del Hombre (Origin, Nature and Antiquity of Man,1872).

Despite appreciating Mortillet’s work, Vilanova y Piera diverged from him by being a staunch defender of creationism as opposed to Darwinian evolutionism, the only tendency strong enough to oppose mainstream creationism, although the evolutionary ideas of Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) had enjoyed some recognition since the 1830s, having been severely attacked by the Catholic Church, especially by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman in his work Diary between the relations that exist between the sciences and revealed religion (1844). He supported the theses of Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), affirming in his discourse that humanity had emerged from a single species developed in a single centre of creation and with a single, primitive language. Vilanova’s creationist stance was not only due to his scientific positions that would lead him to doubt the validity of the evolutionary process of the human species, but also to the influence and power of the Catholic Church. The Catholic religion dominated the ideological structure in Spain and, with the support of the monarchy and the government, exercised through its priests and churches a profound influence on Spanish society. Going against ecclesiastical postulates in the last quarter of the 19th century meant facing harsh criticism that could lead to academic disrepute and ostracism, as the public authorities supported the mandates of the Church in order to obtain its support in maintaining social peace.

An important figure at this time was the politician and historian Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (1828-1897) (fig. 3), who served several terms as prime minister between 1875 and 1897 and was director of the Royal Academy of History (RAH) between 1882 and 1897. He was the architect of the ideological structure of the Restoration that had defined the need to structure the historical knowledge of nations based on their definition as a group of people brought together by community, race, kinship, and language who lived in a large territory or country and who, due to various circumstances, were subjected to the same regime or government. In a speech given to the Ateneo de Madrid on 6 November 1882, he recommended Vilanova y Piera’s admittance as a full member of the RAH in 1889 to scientifically cover the study of a particular period—prehistory—that had already been recognised by the body in 1886 at the proposal of Cánovas himself.¹⁸ His objective was to integrate this period into the positivist discourse of the Iberian Peninsula as an exponent of the formative stage of the Spanish patriotic essence, an idea that would subsist in Spanish historiography, and especially in the RAH, throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, due to the political connotations of the aforementioned approaches. Cánovas del Castillo believed that Vilanova y Piera combined scientific knowledge and Catholic orthodoxy to make it possible to develop the explanation of what he considered a nationality: “the affection for what is theirs, or should be, that each nation feels and encloses in itself, what we usually call today the national spirit”. This was a fully differentiated concept that would have emerged with reunions of smaller or larger numerous families, later structured into tribes and broader collectives, until the spirit of nationality and community emerged, came together and complemented each other. In other words, a single, progressive, uninterrupted phylogenetic line as an explanation of the nation, the same approach that Mortillet defended in his texts.

Vilanova, in his RAH membership acceptance speech, entitled Los testimonios auténticos y más antiguos de la Protohistoria Patria existen en la formación diluvial de San Isidro (The authentic and oldest testimonies of the Protohistory Homeland exist in the diluvial formation of San Isidro),¹⁹ adopted the political ideas of Cánovas del Castillo, affirming that from its most remote origins Spain would have constituted a cultural and social identity different from that of Europe. He maintained a clearly anti-diffusionist position in the extension of the culture, thereby denying the pre-eminent Near Eastern origin in the interpretation of cultural-historical archaeology. Vilanova did not accept the ideas of Mortillet and Cartailhac, supported in Spain by his colleague Francisco María Tubino, regarding the introduction of agricultural production and the knowledge of pottery or metallurgical production through technological diffusionism or migrationism.²⁰ Vilanova gave greater credibility to the autochthonist proposals put forward by Louis Siret (1860-1934) in his Les premiers âges du métal dans le Sud-est de l’Espagne, published two years earlier, in 1887, as part of a speech in which he showed his predisposition to assume nationalist approaches while rejecting the so-called foreign scientific interference in Spanish science. The chronological arc covered by the two texts shows the depth of the differences between Vilanova y Piera and the French prehistorians, despite the recognition they afforded his work in international meetings. This disagreement also led to a bitter and prolonged confrontation with Cartailhac regarding the authenticity of the Altamira cave paintings, also rejected by Mortillet.

An informed researcher.
Monitoring scientific advances in Spain

Mortillet had been aware of the archaeological potential of the Iberian Peninsula through the work of Édouard Lartet (1801-1871) in Logroño, which he reviewed in the magazine he edited, Matériaux pour l’histoire positive et philosophique de l’homme.²¹ He was also cognisant of the publications of Casiano del Prado y Vallo (1797-1866) on the terraces of the Manzanares River, one of his main references in Spanish prehistoric research. De Mortillet also established close ties with Spanish researchers through the exercise of his position as secretary of the prehistory section—chaired by Lartet—within the framework of the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867. His correspondent in Spain was the dean of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Seville, Antonio Machado y Núñez (1812-1896) (fig. 4). The latter, together with Casiano del Prado, would be in charge of organising the Primitive History of Man section in the Spanish pavilion of the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistory held in parallel to the exhibition, for which Lartet lent finds from Cueva Lóbrega (Torrecilla, Cameros) from his private collection. The finds from the Iberian Peninsula were commented on by Mortillet in his chronicle of the exhibition.²² He praised the finds compiled and presented under the direction of the mining engineer Amalio Maestre Ibáñez (1812-1872), among which he highlighted the similarities between the stone objects from the Manzanares archaeological sites, which he placed in the Period of the Elephants and linked typologically to the finds in the Somme Valley.²³ Some Spanish scholars appreciated the first attempts to reorganise the classification structure of Palaeolithic finds that Mortillet would develop and apply in the Museum of Antiquities of Saint Germain-en-Laye in 1868.²⁴ His growing prestige in Spain would materialise precisely as a result of said designation, when, in compliance with the regulations that prevented officials from owning private collections made up of finds in their speciality, an auction was proposed of the private collection that Mortillet had in his Paris home and that he was obliged to dispose of.²⁵ Aureliano Fernández Guerra y Orbe (1816-1894) informed the RAH on 3 April 1868 that said collection contained

“objects from the Quaternary alluviums, the mammoth era, from the deposits of the plateaus, from the first era of the caverns, known as of the bear; from the second period of the caverns that is designated as of the reindeers; from the polished stone era. From the metal age, there are objects from the transition period, from the Bronze to the Early Iron Age.”²⁶

He urged the institution to inform the General Directorate of Public Instruction (DGIP) about the possibility of purchasing some of the finds for the collections of the National Archaeological Museum established in 1867. Although the RAH considered the proposal and submitted a request to that effect to the DGIP, the government did not take it into consideration, and Mortillet’s finds would end up adding to the collections of the French antiquities museum and other places.

Mortillet’s hypotheses would attain their greatest influence in Spain following the publication of his Musée Préhistorique in 1881. The palaeontological classification system for the Palaeolithic proposed by Lartet in 1861, based on the evolution of fauna, gave way to the sequence of Stone Age index fossils, including the Acheulean, Mousterian, Solutrean and Magdalenian epochs. Upon this, local researchers linked to the royal academies and the universities, and especially the members of the Association of Archivists, Librarians and Archaeologists (CFABA), in charge of the classification and presentation of public collections, had an essential manual for their work.

The Musée Préhistorique would remain in force as a reference work until the third decade of the 20th century, especially in the Cabinet of Natural History Museum (MGHN) between the middle and end of the 19th century and the National Archaeological Museum (MAN) in Madrid after its definitive installation in 1898. The CFABA specialists assigned to the MGHN adapted Mortillet’s terminology to Spanish, thus enunciating the Cheleano, Solutreano and Mousteroniano periods in debatable direct translations that, nevertheless, remained in the inventories for years. They distorted the “Spanishised” nomenclatures that were used in scientific publications, given that Mortillet’s work would become the terminological and taxonomic reference for lithic typology. It would not even be replaced by the Nomenclatura de voces técnicas y de instrumentos típicos del Paleolítico (Nomenclature of technical words and typical instruments of the Palaeolithic) published in 1916 by the Comisión de Investigaciones Paleontológicas y Prehistóricas (Commission of Palaeontological and Prehistoric Research-CIPP). That institution was set up in 1912 at the request of Eduardo Hernández-Pacheco y Estevan (1872-1965) as a consequence of the advance of nationalism in Spanish prehistoric research and to oppose the work of the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, considered the major exponent of the so-called “French imperialism.”²⁷ Even the structure of the MGHN was adapted to that designed by Mortillet in Saint Germain-en-Laye, differentiating between Tertiary Man, Quaternary Man and Modern Man. In each period, as in the French model, were shown not only the lithic industry, but also the geological, animal and plant remains associated with the archaeological sites. Nevertheless, in his Organización y arreglo de los Museos de Historia Natural (Revision and Organisation of the Natural History Museums, 1884) the geologist and palaeontologist Salvador Calderón y Arana (1851-1911) advocated an adaptation of the so-called Mortillet System. Like Vilanova y Piera, he understood that the French periodisations bore little relevance to Spain, as they were different settlement structures. He therefore defended the need to “adjust” Mortillet’s system in which,²⁸ even if the finds of French origin were considered, a differentiation could be made in the explanation of prehistory between the interpretative parameters or presuppositions of a general nature, and the expression of the different territorial questions that could be structured according to their specific characteristics, in a new application of territorial ideas characterising identity.

However, while Spanish scholars and professional researchers kept one eye on preventing the expansionism of French prehistory, Gallic prehistorians remained attentive to the results of the investigations undertaken in Spain to expand the impact of the data coming from the French archaeological sites. The influence of French Palaeolithic archaeology on the characterisation of sites on the Iberian Peninsula is exemplified in the works of Pere Alsius i Torrent (1831-1915). In 1866, at the suggestion of the Capuchin Father Josep Catà, this scholar from Banyoles (Girona),²⁹ visited the cave of Bora Gran d’en Carreres (Serinyà). There he documented the remains of fauna with evidence of fractures and fleshing marks that, based on a comparison with the results of several European sites, pointed to a possible association with the lithic industry.³⁰ His research was endorsed by Joan Teixidor i Cos (1836-1885) in his admission speech to the Real Academia de Ciencias y Artes de Barcelona in 1879 and, through him, by Édouard Harlé (1850-1922). The latter visited Alsius³¹ and, after studying his collections, excavated in the Bora Gran cave in 1882. The results of his excavation revealed Magdalenian occupation levels based on the find typologies. His conclusions would be endorsed by Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1835-1890) and Mortillet, who included them in his work Le Préhistorique, origine et antiquité de l’homme.³² They became part of the French syntheses on prehistory published in that country. They were considered to be the most outstanding assemblage of the period in Spain, together with the finds made by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola at Altamira (Santander) and Lartet at Torrecilla de Cameros (Logroño). They also contributed to the knowledge of the Banyoles complex of archaeological sites in which, in 1886, Alsius identified a mandible with Neanderthal features, a key piece for the development of Palaeolithic archaeology in Spain.³³ As an endorsement of Alsius’ research, Mortillet’s works would become a reference for Catalan researchers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, along with the those of Émile Cartailhac (1845-1921). The adoption of Mortillet’s postulates was late in coming and occurred when they had already been questioned in France. This was due to the delay in the formation of prehistoric science in Spain, which did not begin to assume the knowledge already developed in Europe until the end of the 19th century. This was due to the confrontations between science and the Church and the influence of religion on research and university teaching. This was the case of the historian and politician Salvador Sanpere i Miquel (1840-1915) and especially Pere Bosch Gimpera (1891-1974). Both would use Mortillet’s work, alongside those of Óscar Montelius (1843-1921), Horace Sandars (1852-1922) and Joseph Déchelette (1862-1914), to train their students at the University of Barcelona and the researchers associated with the Institut d’Estudis Catalans Archaeological Research Service. The influence of Mortillet’s work would reach researchers from all over Spain. For example, it was used as a basis for the studies of Carlos Cañal y Migolla (1876-1938) in his synthesis Sevilla prehistórica (Prehistoric Seville, 1894) that won awards from the Ateneo and the Sociedad de Excursiones de Sevilla. This work was reviewed by Marcellin Boule (1861-1942) in L’Anthropologie in 1895,³⁴ and it also influenced Gregorio Chil y Naranjo’s (1831-1901) studies of indigenism and the prehistory of the Canary Islands after he came to know to Mortillet at a very early stage during his period as a medical student at La Sorbonne between 1849 and 1859.³⁵

This influence of his studies does not mean, however, that Mortillet’s approaches were accepted without criticism. Cánovas del Castillo commissioned Vilanova y Piera, together with Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado (1829-1901), an academic and director of the National Archaeological Museum between 1891 and 1900, to write the first volume of the Historia General de España (General History of Spain) promoted by the RAH and entitled Geología y Protohistoria Ibéricas (Iberian Geology and Protohistory). Published in 1894, it would take up the need to delve more deeply into the differences between Spanish and French prehistorians.³⁶ These differences were due to the presumption by the former of a scientific colonialism on the part of the latter when dealing with the greater international repercussion of the main themes of Iberian Peninsula prehistory. From the perspective of its autochthonist postulates, it criticised, for example, Cartailhac and Mortillet’s theses on the technological diffusion and migratory flows during the Neolithic to explain the development of the period in Europe, and especially in Spain, based on the specific seriations. The authors would also come into conflict with Mortillet over the definition of the Chalcolithic as a specific period prior to the Bronze Age.³⁷ This followed a line of analysis that had already begun in 1869 at the ICAAP Copenhagen and Lisbon congress and continued in AFAS Algiers meeting. They increased their criticism of the defence of a local and diverse evolution of the social structures of that period.³⁸ Consequently, they rejected Mortillet’s hypothesis of diffusionism in the Bronze Age, which he characterised as a single period he called the Bohémienne (Bohmiense in Vilanova’s translation), in favour of what he considered to be the original area, which, in turn, he divided it into two phases, Larnaudienne and Morgienne. Well acquainted with, among others, the works of Siret, Vilanova could not accept such a simple systematisation at a time when prehistoric research in Europe was moving towards the definition of the concept of material cultures and the comparative systematisation of settlement processes on the continent. These were based on the diversity of the chronological sequences, the increasing specificity of the typologies, and the interrelations between social structures, so that only the classification of the Palaeolithic phases was accepted, and moreover with nuances. Therefore, following the proposals indicated in his previous studies, Vilanova y Piera suggested modifying Mortillet’s periodisation, replacing the denominations of the Palaeolithic phases based on French archaeological sites with references to Spanish sites. For example, he proposed changing the name of the Acheulian period to Matritense with reference to the arenaceous archaeological sites on the Manzanares River near Madrid, a concept continued by J. Pérez de Barradas.³⁹ However, there were major his errors in his definition of settlement sequences, especially when he placed several phases of the Palaeolithic in the Mesolithic. As a consequence, his proposals for terminological redefinition were not accepted.

The Altamira controversy

Beyond the scientific differences, one of the reasons for the Vilanova y Piera’s discrepancies with Mortillet—discrepancies that in any case were one-sided as they concerned the Spanish researcher more than his French counterpart—can be found in a question that began with a scientific disparity of criteria but turned into a personal issue. This was especially true for Vilanova, due to the consequences it had for his professional career. It involved the debate over recognising the authenticity of the Altamira cave paintings, discovered in Santillana del Mar in 1880. Vilanova became a firm defender of the Palaeolithic dating proposed by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola (1831-1888). He risked his prestige in international forums, such as the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology of Lisbon (1880) and the Congress of the French Association for the Advancement of Sciences in Algiers (1881). In Spain, where he would have bitter disputes with the negationist or sceptical members of the Sociedad Española de Historia Natural (Spanish Society of Natural History, SEHN), mixing arguments based on the typology of the finds associated with the paintings to determine their authenticity and chronology with the nationalist positions relating to the greater importance and prestige of the archaeological sites based on their assignment to states, and especially the ideological debate derived from the confrontation between evolutionists and creationists.⁴⁰

Vilanova was a staunch supporter of Sanz de Sautuola’s work from the first communications presented in the SEHN, arguing the contemporaneity between the paintings and the finds documented in the cave.⁴¹ However, by applying the nationalism with which he interpreted Spanish prehistory, he made the mistake of considering Altamira superior to the artistic expressions identified at the French sites such as Massat and La Madeleine. This led to a scientific controversy in the field of political confrontation between Spanish and French prehistorians, as well as to a confrontation between the evolutionary theses of the progress of technological knowledge and the artistic expression of the postulates of historical-cultural archaeology and the Scandinavian school that defended the progressive complexity of human thought from the stage of savagery to that of civilisation. The latter were based on the early works of Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (1788-1865) and disagreed with the creationists who saw the perfection of the Altamira depictions as proof of divine inspiration in the earliest stages of Humanity. During the sessions of the Lisbon congress, he initially received a certain positive assessment and the stimulus to continue his research from Léon Henri Martin (1864-1936) and Émile Cartailhac. However, the internal dissension and the contrary role of many SEHN members dissuaded the French researchers from going to Santillana to study the paintings.⁴² Although Harlé visited Santillana in March and April 1881, collecting finds that would be deposited in the Toulouse Museum, this did not lead him to reconsider his scepticism about the authenticity of the paintings. The final blow to Vilanova’s efforts would come when Cartailhac and Mortillet agreed to reject the authenticity of Altamira before the sessions of the Algiers congress, convincing the French scientists, which meant in practice positioning the most important core of European prehistoric science. Mortillet himself, based on Harlé’s information and impressions, denied the authenticity of the paintings in the 1883 edition of La Préhistoire. Origine et Antiquité de l’Homme. This laid the foundations for a negative academic interpretation that would remain in force for two decades until Cartailhac’s public rectification in 1902, a rectification that Mortillet could not join in with as he died in 1898, although he had been present at the origin of the controversy by forming part, along with Vilanova, of the commission in charge of the study of the Hombre de Otta at the Lisbon Congress in 1880. What would be added, but much later, during the sessions of the Fourth International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences held in Madrid in 1954, was the apology by Harlé, on whom Mortillet had based his rejection. Henri Breuil, during his intervention, affirmed that he had always felt bad about this due to the scientific consequences, and the personal derivations of the opposing position, of his scepticism between 1880-1881. During that time, he had affirmed that the paintings had been made shortly before their discovery by Sautuola, dismissing them as false, with the social and academic implications that involved.⁴³ In the case of the SEHN, the apologies also came late, as they were expressed after Cartailhac’s declaration in 1902, considered in Spain to be the official recognition by French prehistorians of the authenticity of the paintings, and the belated panegyric by Luis de Hoyos Sainz (1868-1951).⁴⁴ This was not sufficient to heal the acrimony of the criticisms made twenty years earlier.

As we know, the rectifications came too late for Sanz de Sautuola and Vilanova y Piera, who died in 1888 and 1893 respectively. In fact, Vilanova y Piera, affected by the impact of criticism on his professional prestige, would begin an anti-French movement in the publications of the last stages of his research. He accused the French scientists of presenting an exacerbated and exclusionary vision of prehistoric research based on the principles of chauvinist Franco-centrism.⁴⁵ This was a concept of the chauvinism of European countries that Mortillet himself would use to refer to the scientific trends of the last third of the 19th century in which French research underestimated or subordinated the structuring and interpretative knowledge of prehistory. The main targets of his criticism were Cartailhac and Mortillet who, during the last two decades of the 19th century, defended a restrictive concept of artistic expression, admitting portable art for its simplicity of form and ease of execution, while largely rejecting rock art due to its complexity. This was a very simplistic view related to the expression of complex, non-tangible concepts of thought, a result of the assumption that “primitive man” was not capable of a complex and symbolic understanding of art. That is why Mortillet referred to it as “the childhood of art”, applying the ideas of Eugène Véron (1825-1889) following parameters closely linked to colonialist archaeological theories of the structuring of Palaeolithic and historical-cultural archaeology at the end of the 19th century. These were based on the denial of the ability of primitive peoples—and by extension prehistoric societies—to develop an art with symbolic complexity and the technical knowledge for naturalistic representation.

The decline of the influence

The specific weight of Mortillet’s works in the Spanish scientific field, beyond the adoption of the terminology of the Palaeolithic stages and the museum systematisation, declined rapidly at the beginning of the 20th century as it did not introduce new summary data on the Iberian Peninsula archaeological sites. As an example, Pere Bosch Gimpera, professor at the University of Barcelona and the main referent, together with Hugo Obermaier (1877-1946), for Spanish prehistory until the Civil War, would ignore his works both in his teaching and research work. Obermaier in particular always rejected the theories of Gabriel de Mortillet and Adrien de Mortillet (1854-1931), being influenced in the case of the latter by the discussions he had with his great friend Henri Breuil.

They were not cited in either of his first books, L’Edat de la Pedra (The Stone Age, 1916) and Prehistòria catalana. Edats de la Pedra i dels Metalls (Catalan Prehistory. The Stone and Metal Ages, 1919), nor in his main work, Etnología de la Península Ibérica (Ethnology of the Iberian Peninsula, 1932). The reasons must be sought in Bosch and Obermaier’s attempts to renew prehistoric research in Spain by introducing the specific studies undertaken by Spanish researchers and the results of the new European syntheses. Therefore, just five years after Minister Gimeno y Cabañas had cited them in his speech before the Senate,⁴⁶ the figures of Mortillet, Lartet, Cartailhac and Harlé would be replaced by the studies of Joseph Dechelette published between 1908 and 1914,⁴⁷ Spanish researchers themselves would draw up their own syntheses to avoid dependence on the French influence, the ascendancy of which had reached its climax during the first years of the century, thanks to the economic and political support of the Prince of Monaco. It would end abruptly because of the outbreak of the First World War, which divided Spanish prehistorians into two opposing sides: Germanophiles and those supporting the Allies. Another factor would be the death of Mortillet in 1898, shortly before the recognition of the authenticity of Altamira and the explosion of prehistory studies both by the RAH and the CIPP and, in Catalonia, by the IEC. All this accounted for the continued presence in Spain of French researchers, both from the 19th-century generation, in the case of Cartailhac, and the representatives of the generation that would mark the development of the next century. Of particular note was Dechelette, until his premature death at the beginning of the First World War, as well as Henri Breuil and Raymond Lantier (1886-1980) who, during the 1910s undertook a systematic exploration of rock art in various areas of Spain. Neither should we forget other scholars such as Pierre París (1859-1931) and Arthur Engel (1855-1935) who focused on protohistoric studies. The sunset of Mortillet’s influence was brought about by a combination of factors: the obsolescence of his scientific ideas, due to his failure to understand the development and growing complexity of the social sciences, and the lack of a physical presence, the progressive loss of the Spanish scholars with whom he had maintained a relationship or who had been trained by reading his works, and the death of politicians influential in the characterisation of the historiographic discourse, such as Cánovas del Castillo (assassinated in 1897). All of this limited the definition and construction in greater depth of the patriotic story of the history of Spain through archaeological research and the chronologies of the first stages of prehistory. However, Mortillet’s commitment to the nationalist expression of the evolutionary process when dealing with the intrinsic characteristics of the definition or use of the concepts of homeland and nation had found fertile ground in the political impulses of a large group of Spanish intellectuals and would remain in force throughout the 20th century. Although references to Mortillet’s work would become increasingly scarce in Spanish scientific literature, his principle of understanding prehistory as a determining part of the process of shaping national identity constituted the starting point for the use of prehistory and archaeology as a documentary basis for the nationalist discourse. This was because it defined as indivisible and already configured from the remotest past, the very idea of the nation used in a presentist key for the construction of the historiographical narrative that would enable social cohesion around a common past.⁴⁸

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Notes

1. Gracia Alonso 2017, 297-328.
2. Gracia Alonso 2009, 21-24.
3. Diario de las sesiones de Cortes. Senado, 51, 1, 6 June 1911, 1-2.
4. Diario de las sesiones de Cortes. Senado, 51, 1, 6 June 1911, 1-2.
5. Gracia Alonso 2018, 199-248.
6. Gaceta de Madrid, 80, 21 March 1867, 1.
7. Gaceta de Madrid, 166, 15 June 1867, 1-2.
8. Mélida 1895, 21-23.
9. Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Senado, 60, 17 June 1911, 894.
10. Mortillet 1897, 329.
11. Gracia Alonso 2016, 64-95.
12. Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Senado, 60, 17 June 1911, 894.
13. Gaceta de Madrid, 189, 8 July 1911, 95-96.
14. Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Senado, 66, 18 January 1912, 994; Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Congreso de los Diputados, 67, 18 January 1912, 1790.
15. Gaceta de Madrid, 65, 5 March 1912, 671-673.
16. Vilanova y Piera 1875, 151-154.
17. Vilanova y Piera 1869.
18. Cánovas del Castillo 1882; Cánovas del Castillo 1889.
19. Vilanova y Piera 1889.
20. Revuelta Tubino 1989.
21. Mortillet 1866, 281-286.
22. Mortillet 1869.
23. Ayarzagüena 2002.
24. Mortillet 1868.
25. Gracia Alonso 2021, 453-487.
26. Fernández-Guerra, 1868.
27. Gracia Alonso 2021, 453-487.
28. Tubino 1867, 20-29.
29. Soler 2016, 123-145.
30. Alsius 1878, 156-171.
31. Soler & Soler 2012, 309-328.
32. Harlé 1882-1883, 293-299.
33. Alsius 1915, 126-132.
34. Boule 1896, 190-191.
35. Chil Naranjo 1875; Bosch Miralles 2003.
36. Rada y Delgado & Vilanova y Piera 1894.
37. Vilanova y Piera 1889, 68-69.
38. Vilanova y Piera 1869, Vilanova y Piera 1872.
39. Pérez de Barradas 1934, 249-254.
40. Gracia Alonso 2021, 93-96.
41. Pelayo López & Gozalvo Gutiérrez 2012, 254-260.
42. Ayarzagüena 2006, 40-47, Ayarzagüena 2012, 28-39.
43. Gracia Alonso 2021, 93-96.
44. Hoyos Sainz 1902, 298-299.
45. Gracia Alonso 2021, 453-460.
46. Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Senado, 60, 17 June 1911, 894.
47. Dechelette 1908-1914.
48. Gracia Alonso 2018, Gracia Alonso 2021.