Prehistória (Institute of Spanish Prehistory, 1958) and the Instituto Rodrigo Caro (Rodrigo Caro Institute, 1951) of classical archaeology, directed by Martin Almagro Basch and Antonio Garclia Bellido, respectively. These are still the only institutions of the central government specifically dedicated to archaeological research, and their journals, Trabajos de Prehistória and Archivo Español de Arqueología, have become among the most important in their respective specialties. As this period ended, Spain had a centralized administrative infrastructure responsible for the growing number of sites of all periods throughout its territory, and meetings of specialists and numerous publications made known the state of research. Antonio Beltran organized the Archaeological Congresses of Southeast Spain, which began in 1946, became national congresses in 1949, and have met biennially since then. In turn, the less regularly scheduled Symposia for Peninsular Archaeology established by Juan Maluquer de Motes in 1959 have served as important points of reference.

Academic Expansion and the “Science of Archaeology” in the 1960s and 1970s

Spain’s general development in the 1960s and 1970s had very positive consequences for archaeology, such as the expansion of university education as the first members of the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s came of age and an increase in funding both for university personnel and for archaeological field and laboratory research. In contrast, theoretical and methodological debate was tardy and scanty, and the centralization of archaeological policy, tied to the interests of an elitist academic community, limited the discipline’s social impact.

During this period, Spanish archaeological missions were sent to Central and South America (Anonymous 1987) and to the Sudan, Egypt, jordan, and Syria (Perez Die 1983). The importance of universities to Spanish archaeology was reinforced by the general increase in the number of students and professors and, toward the end of the period, by the creation of specialized degree programs in prehistory or prehistory and archaeology in the larger universities (Ruiz Zapatero 1993b, 51). Museums were revitalized formally and functionally as exhibits were remodeled and outreach programs were expanded. Martin Almagro Basch’s directorship (1968–1981) of the National Museum of Archaeology exemplifies this pattern (Marcos 1993, 95). A very important monographic series, Excavaciones Arqueológicas en España, began to be published by the central government in 1962, and various university and museum journals appeared.

A strongly positivist research orientation characterized the first decade of this period, but at the end of the second, this orientation began to be questioned by a minority group of newly appointed university professors in Barcelona, Jaen, and Madrid. Fieldwork improved, with a better appreciation of stratigraphy and more detailed recording becoming prevalent. Prehistoric research increasingly (but other branches of archaeology only rarely) involved collaboration with the natural sciences. Meetings on scientific archaeology held in the late 1970s promoted the formation of the incipient Spanish infrastructure in this area (Chapa 1988, 137). In general, the role of biologists and archaeologists from Germany (M. Hopf, J. Boessneck, A. von der Driesch, E. Sangmeister, H. Schubart, W. Schule, W. Grunhagen, K. Raddatz, W. Hubener, T. Hauschild, H. Schlunk, T. Ulbert, Ch. Ewert) and France (Arlette and andré leroi-gourhan, françois bordes, C. Domergue) was decisive in these developments, as was North American research on the Paleolithic period (C. Howell, K. Butzer, and L.G. Freeman at Torralba, Ambrona, and Cueva Morin) (Moure 1993, 217).

Throughout this period, Spanish archaeology was centered on the prehistoric and classical periods, and medieval archaeology was included in the National Archaeological Congresses only from 1971 on (Rossello-Bordoy 1986, 8). Americanist archaeological research developed completely independently from Old World archaeology, as the Museum of the Americas, with its own premises (subject to long closures) as of 1965 (Cabello 1989, 51–52), did not encourage a convergence.

At the end of the 1970s, several factors led to a reconsideration of the disciplinary tradition and laid the groundwork for future debate. The editorial work of the members of the Departamento