ATAPUERCA: HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS' HOMETOWN

Homo Heidelbergensis 

Homo heidelbergensis – also Homo rhodesiensis – is an extinct species of the genus Homo that lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago. The skulls of this species share features with both Homo erectus and anatomically modern Homo sapiens; its brain was nearly as large as that of Homo sapiens. 

Although the first discovery - a mandible - was made in 1907 near Heidelberg in Germany where it was described and named by Otto Schoetensack, "the great majority of fossils attributed to Homo heidelbergensis have [only] been obtained recently, beginning in 1997." The Sima de los Huesos cave at Atapuerca in northern Spain holds particularly rich layers of deposits that "represent an exceptional reserve of data" where excavations are still in progress. 

Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans are all considered to have descended from Homo heidelbergensis that appeared around 700,000 years ago in Africa. Fossils have been recovered in Ethiopia, Namibia and South Africa. Between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago a group of Homo heidelbergensis migrated into Europe and West Asia via yet unknown routes and eventually evolved into Neanderthals.

Archaeological sites exist in Spain, Italy, France, England, Germany, Hungary and Greece. Another Homo heidelbergensis group ventured eastwards into continental Asia, eventually developing into Denisovans. The African Homo heidelbergensis (Homo rhodesiensis) population evolved into Homo sapiens approximately 130,000 years ago, then migrated into Europe and Asia in a second wave at some point between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago. The correct assignment of many fossils to a particular chronospecies is difficult and often controversies ensue among paleoanthropologists due to the absence of universally accepted dividing lines (autapomorphies) between Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals. Some researchers suggest that the finds associated to Homo heidelbergensis are mere variants of Homo erectus.

More information: Museo de la Evolución Humana (Burgos)

MIGUELÓN IN THE SIMA DE LOS HUESOS, ATAPUERCA (BURGOS)

Miguelón's skull and jaws

Miguelón (considered to be 400,000 years old) is the popular nickname for the most complete skull of an Homo heidelbergensis ever found. 

More than 5,500 human fossils of this species, which are considered to be the direct ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis, have been found in the Sima de los Huesos ("pit of bones") site in the Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain. 

The excavators suggest that this concentration of bones in the pit may represent the practice of burial by the inhabitants of the cave. A competing theory cites the lack of small bones in the assemblage and suggests that the remains were washed into the pit by natural agents.

Miguelón's bony pelvis

Miguelón, around thirty years old, had 13 impacts in the head and died of septicemia resulting from broken teeth. In his upper left jaw there is an important bone alteration, with evidence of alveolar infection. According to Juan Luis Arsuaga, professor in Paleontology, a tooth had been broken in life by a strong blow, so that the flesh had been exposed and led to an infectious process that continued until nearly the orbital bone. The cranial capacity is around 1100cc. 

The nickname Miguelón was derived from Miguel Indurain, a retired Spanish road racing cyclist that won the Tour and Giro in 1992, the year in which this skull was discovered.

More information: Atapuerca.tv - Juan Luis Arsuaga's Web Page

If we turn to palaeontology to tell us about our biological evolution it is to prehistory that we look for evidence of the evolution of specifically human patterns of behaviour.

John G.D.Clark

RAMON LLULL, THE UNIVERSE IS MYSTICALLY CONNECTED

Ramon Llull

Today, The Grandma has visited the CCCB in Barcelona to homage her favourite historic character: Ramon Llull.

Ramon Llull was born in Ciutat de Mallorques (Palma) in 1232 and died in Tunisia in 1316. Nowadays, we’re celebrating the 700^th anniversary of his death. Llull was a revolutionary in his age. He changed the European thought and studied all the Arts. He was the most important philosopher in his age and he spoke four languages: Catalan, Occitan, Arabian and Latin. He used the binary code and showed how you could write all things with only two symbols.

Llull was the most scholar person and a great precursor. He taught how to create modernity from a different way. His work Ars Combinatoria is a permanent improvisation between concepts, symbols and words. There are two important words in all Llull's works: connection and net. Studying Llull is an incredible process of discovering and constant fascination.

We can consider Ramon Llull as the first European philosopher. His reality is in a constant movement and all the elements are interconnected. Llull was the first who had the intuition that all is connected from a mystic point of view. He thought that the principle of the reality is God and the relation is transmitted like a model to the rest of the reality because all the elements have this relational structure. This is the reason because of Llull invented a machine and a method that put in relation with arts and this is the reason because of some Scientifics consider Llull the precursor of an invention that would revolutionize all things seven centuries later: the computer.

More information: Quis est Lullus

The theme of this Art is the answer to all the questions.

Ramon Llull

There is an important Llull's idea: there isn’t harmony without difference. Based on this idea, Llull wanted to create a Magna Ars and he offered ideas that are very innovative for us in our present. He’s in the centre of the conflicts that the world lives nowadays.

Using the mechanism of the Ars Combinatoria, Llull proposed the union of the different knowledges. These knowledges guided the men to reach the peace between the religions using the reasoning, the demonstration and the dialogue. This knowledge represents a complex mechanism of geometric figures and symbols that combine letters and concepts and this knowledge is announced like a new wisdom with universal pretensions.

Llull's Ars Combinatoria is a precedent of our new technologies of information, a first model of a society, relationships, procedures and virtues that have been blended many years later.

More information: Ramon Llull Routes

Ramon Llull was a philosopher, a mystic and a visionary. Catalan, European and Mediterranean, the Llull's world was rich and varied. He wrote more than 250 books in Catalan, Latin and Arabian and travelled around Orient and Occident. He joined the Greek, Jewish, Arabian philosophies with the Christian Neoplatonism and all of them with Sciences like Astronomy, Theology, Philosophy, Logic, Medicine and Language. Language was the centre of all because Language is communication.

The legend says that Ramon Llull died because of his ideas which were too advanced, transcendent and uncomprehensive for being understood in all its fullness, even nowadays, 700 years later living in the age of technology.

Maria del Mar Bonet's Amic, Amat

In 2004, Maria del Mar Bonet, a great Majorcan singer and one of the most beautiful Mediterranean voices, paid tribute to Ramon Llull with her disc Amat, Amat. This work was presented on live in the summer festival of Barcelona, Grec. That night, Maria del Mar Bonet sang these wonderful songs accompanied by the Cham Ensemble of Damascus in a magic scenery: the Greek theatre in Montjuïc, a mountain with Jewish ancestors.

This work joined the essence of Ramon Llull: Arabian (Cham Ensemble of Damascus); Greek (theatre); Jewish (Montjuïc) and Christian Neoplatonism (Maria del Mar Bonet).

The dramatic situation in Syria, nowadays, does that is impossible to repeat a show like this because of the tragic situation of the members of the Cham Ensemble of Damascus.

More information: Jo, Ramon Llull

If you don't possess yourself,
you're extremely poor.

Ramon Llull

FREDDIE MERCURY: YOU'RE STILL A KIND OF MAGIC

Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946–24 November 1991) was a British singer, songwriter and record producer, known as the lead vocalist and co-principal songwriter of the rock band Queen. He also became known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. 

Mercury was born of Parsi descent in the Sultanate of Zanzibar and grew up there and in India until his mid-teens, before moving with his family to Middlesex, England — ultimately forming the band Queen in 1970 with Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor. Mercury died in 1991 at age 45 due to complications from AIDS, having acknowledged the day before his death that he had contracted the disease.

More information: Freddie Mercury

In 1992 Mercury was posthumously awarded the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, with a tribute concert held at Wembley Stadium, London. As a member of Queen, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004, and the band received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002. In 2002, he was placed at number 58 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Consistently voted one of the greatest singers in the history of popular music, Mercury was voted best male singer of all time in a 2005 poll organised by Blender and MTV2; was ranked at 18 on the 2008 Rolling Stone list of the 100 greatest singers ever; was elected in 2009 as the best rock singer of all time by Classic Rock; — and was described by AllMusic as "one of rock's greatest all-time entertainers," with "one of the greatest voices in all of music".

More information: Queen Official Web

When I'm dead, I want to be remembered
as a musician of some worth and substance.
 

Freddie Mercury

MARIANAO, FROM CUBA TO SANT BOI DE LLOBREGAT

Salvador de Samà i Torrents
Marquis of Marianao

Marianao, which means the ship of Maria, it’s a place in Cuba where a Catalan family, The Samà, created a big fortune. They were Indians.

Salvador de Samà i Torrents, Marquis of Samà, Marianao and Vilanova i la Geltrú (1861-1933) was a senator in the Spanish Court and Mayor of Barcelona (1905-1906). He received some lands from his father. They were in Sant Boi de Llobregat and thanks to the architect Josep Fontseré, these lands became in a big palace inspired in medieval castle with lots of Gothic ornaments and rounded by tropical vegetation.

Today, these lands are known like Marianao Park.

In 1899, Salvador de Samà sold some lands in Barcelona to Eusebi Güell. In these lands, some years later, it was built the Park Güell. He also ordered to build another park in Cambrils which is named like the family.

More information: Marianao. La ciudad que progresa (Diario de Cuba)

Parc de Marianao, Sant Boi de Llobregat

Salvador Samà and Eusebi Güell had good personal relations and Güell introduced Antoni Gaudí to Samà. It was very important because it can explain the clear influence of Gaudí in two constructions of the Marianao Park: the Miranda Tower and the bridge. When Salvador de Samà, Marquis of Marianao, died his family sold the Marianao Park to a Majorcan family: the Bordoy. 

Abdon Borboy, the new owner decided to convert the park in the first residential place in Catalonia (1957). Since 1974, the City Hall of Sant Boi is the owner of this park.

Nowadays, the Marianao Palace is a public place which hides some secrets: for one hand, it was the place where Miguel Primo de Rivera, a Spanish general coup, signed the putsch (coup d’état) during the kingdom of Alfonso XIII in 1923; for another, it was the residence of José Mallorquí the creator of “El Coyote”.

More information: Palau dels Comtes de Marianao (Sant Boi de Llobregat)

Cuba is such a beautiful country,
and everywhere you go,
there's music and people dancing,
especially in Havana.
 

Julia Sawalha

THE CATALAN INDIANS, EVOKATING THE AMERICAN PAST

The Grandma in Begur, El Baix Empordà

Since 1765, when Carlos III, the Spanish king, had to be more flexible with the commercial monopoly of the Southern Spanish ports over Cuba, we have news about Catalan migrants in this Caribbean Island. The beginning of the Catalan Industrial Revolution and this political resolution marked the economic success of some Catalan migrants in the island during the first half of the 19^th century (1820-1840). During those years, the Catalan migrants had an intensive commercial activity and they became in new members of the Cuban society. In Santiago de Cuba, the commercial activity was so big than native people say “I go to the Catalan” when they went to the winery and surnames like Baró, Martí, Alegret, Ametller or Arnau mixed with the native ones.

Download The phenomenon of the Indians in Catalonia

Judges like Josep Verdaguer, businessmen like Facund Bacardí Massó (founder of Bacardí Rum) and  Jaume Partagàs i Ravell (founder of Partagàs Tobacco Factory), bankers like Narcís Gelats (founder of Banco Gelats) or religious like Antoni Maria Claret, the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, were only an example of personal successes in the island.

The existence of the Modernism art in La Habana is a great influence of the Catalan artists in architecture, painting and sculpture. The main Catalan settlements were Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, La Habana, Matanzas, Bayamo, Manzanillo and Holguín.

Those who became rich and had fortune returned to their hometowns and built Indian-style houses. They missed the island and tried to evocate the Caribbean architecture in towns like Cambrils, Torredembarra, Sitges, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Arenys de Mar, Blanes, Lloret de Mar, Palafrugell or Begur.

More information: Xarxes de Municipis Indians

Lots of Catalans helped Cubans in the Independence Wars against Spain (1868-1878 and 1895-1898) and some years later, lots of Catalans loyal to the Republican troops must emigrate: it was a political exile (1936-1939). Some of them, famous intellectuals, contributed to found prestigious institutions and universities (Universidad de Oriente, 1947) and worked in them.

Nowadays, the influence of Caribbean culture is still visible along the Catalan coast in the architecture and in the traditions. 

Local people celebrate parties to reminisce these cultural influences where Havaneres (Cuban-Catalan music) and rum are the main protagonists.

More information: Cantada d'Havaneres de Calella de Palafrugell

Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, 
to think and to speak without hypocrisy.

José Martí

LA PATUM OF BERGA: DANCES, FIRE & COMMEMORATIONS

Photo: @ClickPatum

The Patum de Berga or simply La Patum, is a popular and traditional festival that is celebrated each year in Berga, Barcelona, during Corpus Christi. 

It consists of a series of dances by townspeople dressed as mystical and symbolical figures, and accompanied either by the rhythm of a drum, the tabal, whose sound gives the festival its name, or band music. The balls are marked by their solemnity and their ample use of fire and pyrotechnics.

More information: La Patum Official Web Page

It was declared a Traditional Festival of National Interest by the Generalitat de Catalunya in 1983, and as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.

Photo: @ClickPatum

La Patum has its origins in pre-Christian celebrations of the Summer solstice, which were recycled and given new symbolism by the Catholic Church as part of its Corpus celebrations. In Berga, the earliest conserved reference to a Corpus procession is May 20, 1454. The festival evolved and incorporated more elements popular and religious theater in the Middle Ages, leading to a unique combination of giants, devils, angels, moors, and other bizarre-looking characters.

Despite the religious significance of Corpus Christi, and the Patum's descent from "eucharistic performances," in its present form it is rather a show of popular theater. It is unique in Catalonia. Anthropologists and specialists in folklore have been interested in La Patum.

In 2016, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the "old giants" (Gegants vells) and the 125th anniversary of the "new giants" (Gegants nous), the Bruce Springsteen song If I should fall behind, arranged by Sergi Cuenca, was danced by both couples of giants.

Also in this same year, The Patum has been celebrated in a special date in September to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Virgin of Queralt, patron of the county.

More information: UNESCO Web Page

If you take myth and folklore,
and these things that speak in symbols,
they can be interpreted in so many ways
that although the actual image is clear enough,
the interpretation is infinitely blurred,
a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour
you could imagine.
 

Diana Wynne Jones