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This volume show the many facets of contact in al-Andalus and Medieval Iberia, with issues still vital after more than a millennium as cultures face off and open or close frontiers to ideas, customs, ideologies and the arts.

Curchin explores how, why and to what extent the peoples of Central Spain were integrated into the Roman Empire during the period from the second century BC to the second century AD.He approaches the question from a variety of angles, including the social, economic, religious and material experiences of the inhabitants as they adjusted to change, the mechanisms by which they adopted new structures and values, and the power relations between Rome and the provincials. The book also considers the peculiar cultural features of Central Spain, which made its Romanization so distinctive.

This volume interrogates the assumption that Visigothic practices and institutions were mere imitations of the Byzantine empire. Contributors rethink these practices not as uncritical and derivative adoptions of Byzantine customs, but as dynamic processes in dialogue with not only the Byzantine empire but also with the contemporary Iberian context, as well as the Roman past. The goal of the volume is to approach Visigothic customs not as an uncritical adoption and imitatio of contemporary Roman models (an 'acculturation' model), but as unique interpretations of a common pool of symbols, practices, and institutions that formed the legacy of Rome. The contributors argue that it is necessary to reconsider the idea of imitatio imperii as a process that involved specific actors taking strategic decisions in historically contingent circumstances.

In the thriving urban economies of late thirteenth-century Catalonia, Jewish and Christian women labored to support their families and their communities. The Fruit of Her Hands examines how gender, socioeconomic status, and religious identity shaped how these women lived and worked. Sarah Ifft Decker draws on thousands of notarial contracts as well as legal codes, urban ordinances, and Hebrew responsa literature to explore the lived experiences of Jewish and Christian women in the cities of Barcelona, Girona, and Vic between 1250 and 1350. Relying on an expanded definition of women's work that includes the management of household resources as well as wage labor and artisanal production, this study highlights the crucial contributions women made both to their families and to urban economies. Christian women, Ifft Decker finds, were deeply embedded in urban economic life in ways that challenge traditional dichotomies between women in northern and Mediterranean Europe. And while Jewish women typically played a less active role than their Christian counterparts, Ifft Decker shows how, in moments of communal change and crisis, they could and did assume prominent roles in urban economies. Through its attention to the distinct experiences of Jewish and Christian women, The Fruit of Her Hands advances our understanding of Jewish acculturation in the Iberian Peninsula and the shared experiences of women of different faiths. It will be welcomed by specialists in gender studies and religious studies as well as students and scholars of medieval Iberia.

The phenomenon of Neolithisation refers to the transition of prehistoric populations from a hunter-gatherer to an agro-pastoralist lifestyle. Traditionally, the spread of an agro-pastoralist economy into Europe has been framed within a dichotomy based either on an acculturation phenomenon or on a demic diffusion. However, the nature and speed of this transition is a matter of continuing scientific debate in archaeology, anthropology, and human population genetics. In the present study, we have analyzed the mitochondrial DNA diversity in hunter-gatherers and first farmers from Northern Spain, in relation to the debate surrounding the phenomenon of Neolithisation in Europe. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA was carried out on 54 individuals from Upper Paleolithic and Early Neolithic, which were recovered from nine archaeological sites from Northern Spain (Basque Country, Navarre and Cantabria). In addition, to take all necessary precautions to avoid contamination, different authentication criteria were applied in this study, including: DNA quantification, cloning, duplication (51% of the samples) and replication of the results (43% of the samples) by two independent laboratories. Statistical and multivariate analyses of the mitochondrial variability suggest that the genetic influence of Neolithisation did not spread uniformly throughout Europe, producing heterogeneous genetic consequences in different geographical regions, rejecting the traditional models that explain the Neolithisation in Europe. The differences detected in the mitochondrial DNA lineages of Neolithic groups studied so far (including these ones of this study) suggest different genetic impact of Neolithic in Central Europe, Mediterranean Europe and the Cantabrian fringe. The genetic data obtained in this study provide support for a random dispersion model for Neolithic farmers. This random dispersion had a different impact on the various geographic regions, and thus contradicts the more simplistic total acculturation and replacement models proposed so far to explain Neolithisation.

Purpose A pronounced rise in postpandemic immigration is creating consumption opportunities and challenges for countries worldwide. Past research has shown that immigrant homeownership indicates advanced consumer acculturation. However, critical factors which differentiate immigrant decisions to purchase a home remain underexplored. This study aims to examine the importance of different identity resources in determining homeownership gaps between immigrant groups in Spain during a dynamic decade. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methods research design with triangulation was used. First, the critical “historical research method” is used to empirically assess 15,465 household-level microdata files from the National Immigrant Survey of Spain. Second, the analysis is corroborated through informant interviews, an evaluation of digital news archives and other historical traces such as relevant advertisements in Spain from 2000 to 2009. Findings Results provided an account of immigrant homeownership whereby foreign-born consumers leveraged resources to promote social identities aligned with an advanced level of acculturation through housing investment during this period. Furthermore, marketing focused on specific targets of ethnic minority consumers coupled with government policies to promote immigrant homeownership reinforced the “Spanish Dream” as a new paradigm for housing market integration. Originality/value Spain provides an unprecedented historical context to explain marketing-related phenomena due to a perfect storm of immigration, job availability and integration supports. Contrary to popular wisdom, immigrant consumer homeownership gaps are not solely a result of differences in income and economic mobility, but rather an advanced acculturation outcome driven by personal and social investments in resources that lead to consumer identities.

Background The Islamic influence on the Iberian Peninsula left an enduring cultural and linguistic legacy. However, the demographic impact is less well understood. This study aims to explore the dynamics of gene flow and population structure in eastern Iberia from the early to late medieval period through ancient DNA. Results Our comprehensive genomic analysis uncovers gene flow from various Mediterranean regions into Iberia before the Islamic period, supporting a pre-existing pan-Mediterranean homogenization phenomenon during the Roman Empire. North African ancestry is present but sporadic in late antiquity genomes but becomes consolidated during the Islamic period. We uncover one of the earliest dated Islamic burials in Spain, which shows high levels of consanguinity. For the first time, we also demonstrate the persistence of North African ancestry in a Christian cemetery until the seventeenth century, in addition to evidence of slave trafficking from North Africa. Conclusions This study reveals the complex interaction between political events and cultural shifts that influenced the population of eastern Iberia. It highlights the existence of a slave trade, underscores the low impact of the Reconquista in the genetic landscape, and shows the lasting impact of post-medieval events, such as the Expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609 CE, on the region’s genetic and cultural landscape, through mass population displacement and replacement.

This book charts new directions in thinking about the construction of new world identities... The way in which [Bennett] integrates race, gender, and the tension between canon and secular law into his analysis will inspire re-examination of earlier studies of marriage in Latin America and the Caribbean. -- Judith A. Byfield Colonial Mexico was home to the largest population of free and slave Africans in the New World. Africans in Colonial Mexico explores how they learned to make their way in a culture of Spanish and Roman Catholic absolutism by using the legal institutions of church and state to create a semblance of cultural autonomy. From secular and ecclesiastical court records, Bennett reconstructs the lives of slave and free blacks, their regulation by the government and by the Church, the impact of the Inquisition, their legal status in marriage, and their rights and obligations as Christian subjects. His findings demonstrate the malleable nature of African identities in the Atlantic world, as well as the ability of Africans to deploy their own psychological resources to survive displacement and oppression.

Previous mitochondrial DNA analyses on ancient European remains have suggested that the current distribution of haplogroup H was modeled by the expansion of the Bell Beaker culture (ca 4,500-4,050 years BP) out of Iberia during the Chalcolithic period. However, little is known on the genetic composition of contemporaneous Iberian populations that do not carry the archaeological tool kit defining this culture. Here we have retrieved mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from 19 individuals from a Chalcolithic sample from El Mirador cave in Spain, dated to 4,760-4,200 years BP and we have analyzed the haplogroup composition in the context of modern and ancient populations. Regarding extant African, Asian and European populations, El Mirador shows affinities with Near Eastern groups. In different analyses with other ancient samples, El Mirador clusters with Middle and Late Neolithic populations from Germany, belonging to the Rössen, the Salzmünde and the Baalberge archaeological cultures but not with contemporaneous Bell Beakers. Our analyses support the existence of a common genetic signal between Western and Central Europe during the Middle and Late Neolithic and points to a heterogeneous genetic landscape among Chalcolithic groups.

Spanning the Straight: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean brings together a multidisciplinary collection of essays that examines the deep connections that bound together the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib in the medieval and early modern periods.