The People

History of the Natural Park

 

The Andujar mountain range has been inhabited since prehistory. Its gentle orography, the rich mineral deposits that breed its entrails and the fertility of the fields that irrigate the Guadalquivir attracted to its confines numerous peoples, cultures and civilizations.

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Throughout history, the different inhabitants of the Sierra used the resources it offered them to live, trade and prosper. In addition, its geographical location turned it into a crossroads of commercial routes, which allowed the influence of different cultures that traversed it for economic purposes.

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During the last glacial periods hunting was the main resource, highlighting the hunting of deer in less cold and wet periods, while in arid and cold periods horse hunting prevailed. In caves such as Nava el Sach, El Rodriguero, Ravine of the Bu and Selladores, paintings dating from the late third millennium b.C. have been found, in the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. In these paintings schematic figures of human and animal content are represented. Already in that time and until the II century b. C. There were transhumant shepherds who used these lands.

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The geology of Sierra Morena allowed around 1600 a. C., in the Bronze Age, the exploitation of its minerals by surrounding populations and played for years an important role in the use of resources. Traces of these ancient cultures can be found in sites located on the terraces of the Guadalquivir River and in the Rumblar River basin.

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Next to the Rumblar reservoir there are remains in the Peñalosa site, which allow us to know data on the Argaric Culture, characteristic of the peninsular Southeast in this period. Its inhabitants maintained an economy based on agriculture and mining and used good quality bronze to make all kinds of utensils. The villages placed them on the summits and surrounded them with walls, which gives us an idea that it was a warrior society.

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The Argaric Culture was displaced by the Tartessos, characteristic of the peninsular Southwest, whose decline influenced the advance of the Iberian Culture. The Iberians focused their mining on the production of silver from silver-bearing galena, with very important settlements such as El Centenillo. Silver was then the main incentive for Phoenician and Greek trade, and later, Carthaginian and Roman. Vestiges of exploitations, foundries and Iberian fortifications of the Sierra can be found for example in Plomo hill, Galiarda hill and Los Escoriales.

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The exhaustion of a large part of the mining resources due to their continuous exploitation gave rise to an increase in livestock activity. This was, from the thirteenth century, the main resource for its inhabitants and altered the regime of land ownership and land use. The region of Andújar in the thirteenth century was in the hands of the Military Orders of Calatrava and it was at this time when the majority use of the land became pasture for livestock.

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Likewise, in the sixteenth century, the peak of productive activity derived from hives was produced. During the sixteenth century, Philip II launched a program of sale of badlands, which had a great success in Andújar and allowed a group of families from different places to settle in extensive areas of the Sierra. This situation is the basis of the structure of the current property in the mountain part of the municipality.

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In the 19th century the Law of Confiscation of Madoz supposed that part of the extensive mountain lands, owned by the State, were transferred to local and foreign owners. This fact substantially modified the structure of the aforementioned property, which then became dominated by large private properties of aristocratic and bourgeois origin.

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At present, within the Sierra de Andujar Natural Park there is no population center, but isolated homes, the so-called "vineyards".