Archaeology in Spain and Portugal through the correspondence of Julio Martínez Santa‑Olalla (1905‑1972) to and from Portuguese archaeologists

Abstract

Julio Martínez Santa-Olalla (1905-1972), the Spanish Commissioner General of Archaeological Excavations (1939-1956) and acting Full Professor of Primitive History of Man at the University of Madrid (1939-1954), was an amateur archaeologist since he was very young.

After studying at the universities of Madrid, Barcelona and Valladolid (1923-26), Santa-Olalla obtained a position as a lecturer at the University of Bonn (Germany) between 1927 and 1931. He defended his doctoral thesis in Spain (1932) and became Hugo Obermaier’s assistant (1931-32), Assistant Professor (1932-36), secretary of the Spanish Society of Anthropology, Ethnography and Prehistory (1935) and Full Professor of Archaeology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (1936). This enabled him to join the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists in 1934 and the Portuguese Society of Anthropology and Ethnology in 1938. In 1944, 1945 and 1947 he visited Portugal, lecturing in Lisbon, Coimbra and Oporto, but was unable to undertake other trips planned for 1945 and 1948. His correspondence shows that he maintained relations with the leading Portuguese archaeologists of the time, although he kept a more distant relationship with Veiga Ferreira. He had a special interest in the Chalcolithic and Late Bronze Age phases of Portuguese archaeology.