Why didn't Iberia develop an ancient civilization along with Greece and Italy? They had all the ingredients for it...

Tartesso wasn't a city but most likely a wide area from where the Phoenicians extracted silver, it shared the same etymology of Tarsus in Anatolia which isn't far from silver deposits and Tarshish/Tyrsus in Sardinia which was also rich in silver, that's the most convincing hypothesis

took the words right outta my mouth

probably a Phoenician colony, but i feel like they became autonomous

interesting ::snatches beard::

If Greece and Italy developed an ancient civilization was thanks to being close to the middle east.

There was civilization, but it was almost completely lost after the Roman invasion; the original languages are known to have had their own alphabet, the Basque simply use the Latin alphabet because it proved convenient.
Don't forget that the Iberian peninsula is much bigger than Greece and Italy and, by that time, the population was even smaller in relation to the size than it is today.
Population densities were incredibly small at that time, making it basically impossible to have such a flourishing culture as the ones in the East Mediterranean. Well over 3/4 of Iberia were empty -even today, 50% of the population lives in 10 provinces, and 30% lives in either Madrid or Barcelona- and that is the OPPOSITE of what you need to have civilization.
Also, your question is horribly disingenuous as it says "Spain", as if the population of Spain had remained consistent since the very beginning of time, which is false. It is true that, after Castilla conquered most of the peninsula and the Basque repopulated it, the "Spaniard" is a consistent race, and one that is actually native to Iberia -unlike the others who lived here-, but before 1202, when the whole thing started, Spain was an amalgamation of different peoples, mainly divided between the north and the south, with the geographical centre of the peninsula -modern day Madrid/Toledo- remained empty.
You also forget that, after the Romanization, the ancient cultures were replaced by the very people living in Spain. Even to this day, our history books and ours teachers make it very clear: our history starts with Rome.

And this the other "argument":
>Oh, you didn't ACTUALLY do it.
What I get from this is that what you mean by "Spain" is not actually the whole peninsula, neither the Celts but only -and exclusively- the Iberians. If that is the case, then you are being a foul on purpose, because the peoples of the Mediterranean coast had civilization. They were referenced during the Punic wars as the last people who fought Hannibal before Rome decided to take action
It's also been said already, but Spain, at the time, was too far from the core of civilization.

First account of independent written language in Iberia dates to 100 BC: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts#First_millennium_BC

Took quite a bit longer to be developed than Greek, Italic and Gaulish.

>Population densities were incredibly small at that time, making it basically impossible to have such a flourishing culture as the ones in the East Mediterranean. Well over 3/4 of Iberia were empty -even today, 50% of the population lives in 10 provinces, and 30% lives in either Madrid or Barcelona- and that is the OPPOSITE of what you need to have civilization.
How come? Is Iberia some kind of larger-scale version of Scotland, where almost the entire country is hills and mountains?

Iberia is a fucking scorching desert. It's Italy that is mountainous and with a lot of forests. I dunno if it's climate was different back then though.

Huh. No wonder the Muslims were able to settle it so easily.

>I dunno if it's climate was different back then though.

Could be, could be not. How did Alexandria end up being the food source of the empire if North Africa was still dominated by the Sahara?

Yeah, heat exhaustion and skin cancer must've been a big problem for those Suevi and Visigothic fags at the time if the climate was the same.

> Huh. No wonder the Muslims were able to settle it so easily.

Muslims didn't settle Iberia, 99% of Muslims there were locals who converted to Islam.

In fact, there was a greater population move from Iberia to N African coast than vice versa.

Settle THERE, I mean. Sorry.

>Iberia is a fucking scorching desert
Spain has more forest area than France and it is a smaller country.That picture was probably taking during summer when there are draughts in the country

>How did Alexandria end up being the food source of the empire if North Africa was still dominated by the Sahara?
The Nile

Iberia has 2 desertic areas.
Tabernas, a legal desert, and the region of what's currently "Castilla y León", which isn't legally a desert, but it's functionally a desert.

There were a bunch of agricultural towns/cities in the Empire settled on rivers. What made Alexandria and the Nile more special?

Don't lie. Most of Spain and Portugal looks like this. Endless plains of arid land and olive trees.

>which isn't legally a desert, but it's functionally a desert.
How is it a desert you mong? It had and has the best soil in the country for wheat and had historically a high density of population until very recently due internal migrations to America and Madrid.Why do you think that said region has more cultural heritage than Lombardy or Tuscany if it was a desert?

>What made the largest river into the world and birthplace of civilization so important?

It is official data.Only Sweden has more forested area than Spain in Europe.If you had ever been there the country is full of natural parks and forests.

In a desert.

Also, does the Nile even touch Kenya?

Actually yes, Spain is the second most mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland.

No, the most populated region was Galicia, and the cultural heritage is in the "Castilla" side of "Castilla y León".
León is a horrible place for civilization, and as such, Castilla devoured it.

Cont.
pic related

>No, the most populated region was Galicia
Nope.Castille had the second highest population density in all of Spain for almost 10 centuries.Inflation destroyed the economy which forced tons of migrations to Andalucia,Madrid and America.Castile and to a lesser extend Leon were perfect for growing wheat and was one of the main producers in Europe

>1530
We are talking about ancient civilizations here.

You seriously don't know how incredibly fertile the nile is? Google it, but it has to do with the muds that come from Ethiopia.

But how the fuck is that region a desert? You can find multiple pre roman settlements there and one of the best ancient Roman ruins in that region.The only issue that it had was that it had no conection to the sea so they couldn't import technology as the coastal villages did

Well, it must be a different type of forestation then. One thing's for sure: Iberia has the hottest climate in Europe, gets very little rain and gets the most solar radiation.

Also, this list here is a bit different: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_forest_area

>Italy: 35.00%
>France: 36.76%
>Spain: 36.70%
>Sweden: 68.95%

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France gets counted the French Guayanna which is a huge forest.Metropolitan France is pretty deforested.French Guayanna is 99% jungle

Btw forest limits population growth.French and Germans deforested their land to grow crops.Spaniards were focusing more on war and deforestaition was never as harsh as in those regions

It's not legally a desert, but it might as well. If you are seriously comparing the territory of Galicia, Asturias and Euskadi to what the plains of León are like, you must be delusional.

So how come France and Italy still look more green than Iberia on satellite images?

Grass does not make a forest. And those pictures are taken during summer.

>It's not legally a desert, but it might as well. If you are seriously comparing the territory of Galicia, Asturias and Euskadi to what the plains of León are like, you must be delusional.
Holy fuck you are retarded.There are lots of forest areas in Leon you dumbfuck and even then Germany would be a desert if you compared it with Asturias.

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Anyone can play your game retard.The region is full of water reserves,natural parks and forests

Iberia was more comparable to the Balkans than to Greece or Italy.

-You had basques, you had iberians who probably spoke a language related to basques, you had proper celts, you had a mixture of iberians and celts called celtiberians, you had lusitanians who spoke a very archaic language of the celtic-latin family (perhaps before their split), and you had the people of tartessos whose language is unknown.
-their closest contact to advanced civilization were the trading outposts of the Phoenicians.
-Spain isnt very fertile, for much of history they had less than half the population of France, even when they were a superpower. (although then Greece is also quite arid)

Spanish history starts with Rome, before it was a bunch of very different tribes. And to be sincere, you could say instead that Spanish history started with the Kingdom of Asturians in the VIII century and it would be a respectable opinion.

>iberians and celts called celtiberians

This

Holy fuck you guys have a lot of olive trees

Andalucia has Arab heritage since all it produces is olive oil

THIS
bronze tech took 900 years to reach northern europe. People act like Europe invented everything, when most thigns are learned from othes which is just natural.

spring is nice

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I wanna live here desu

>Arab heritage since all it produces is olive oil
>Olive oil
>Ayyrab
Why the fuck do muslims just appropiate Greek and Roman things and just call them Ayyrab?

Iberia had more populous cities than Rome. The coast line was actually decent there, but only for large scale agriculture with things like Olives. Lack of rivers internally means its hard to do large scale agriculture without first having a society big enough in place to set up aquaducts to bring water from the mountains.

My guess. They did have some small cities, that then got huge after Rome along the littorial. Interior was basically Africa with angry tribals.

>Lack of rivers internally
user, have you ever looked at a map of Spain?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turdetani
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turduli