The presence of science and technology in Spain dates back to Spain's prehistoric period. It is taken to include firstly an account of the historical development of these fields of study, and secondly a description of the current institutional and regulatory framework for continuing this development into the future.
History
The scope of Spain's history with science and technology generally overlaps with the history of science and the history of technology of human history, particularly in Europe. Classifying the degree of scientific, technical or technological notability of certain movements or inventions are established by the established discipline of studies in Science, Technology and Society (STS). Whilst scientific and technical activities are as old as the human race, instances of integrating systematic knowledge, material resources, skills and technical procedures to transform a production process through the application of a defined methodology surfaced at the start the late modern period; in the case of Spain, this came tragically late, in contrast to the verve with which she had become one of the first to enter the early modern period. Few Spanish scientists (excepting those such as Servet, Cajal or Ochoa) were instrumental in the paradigm shifts characteristic of successive scientific revolutions. As a consequence, in Spain the study of the history of science concerns itself mainly with the effects these paradigms had on reaching Spain, and the same is true of technology transfers. Science and technology in Spain, in the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century, was such a "marginal feature of its administrative and social structures", that this very marginality came to be used as a sort of Spanish national stereotype, spread and celebrated by some foreign media, rejected as being pejorative or belittling but on occasion seized on with haughty pride, as in Miguel de Unamuno's immortal phrase, repeatedly used and abused ever since, on both sides of the argument, to the extent of becoming a literary motif or cliché:
Prehistory
Given the absence of written sources, the reconstruction of aspects of pre-scientific and pre-technological thought has been attempted through analysis and interpretation of paleolithic art – of which the Iberian peninsula possesses examples of exceptional value; through studies of stone-working techniques; and through anatomical reconstructions. James Frazer in The Golden Bough proposed similarities between the function of science and that of magic in primitive cultures and in the "primitive mind". More recently André Leroi-Gourhan studied the topic from a structuralist perspective. The identification of "phases" through which human thought has passed in interpreting nature originate with the positivism of Auguste Comte – theological or fictive state; metaphysical or abstract state; and scientific or positivist state. Many other terms have been proposed: magical thinking, pre-philosophical thought, mythopoeic thought and others.
The pre-neanderthal (Homo Heidelbergensis) finds at the Atapuerca site near Burgos in Spain offer one of the most promising directions for paleoanthropological research: to establish the degree of oral communication in that species by reconstruction of the sound-producing mechanism (hyoid) and hearing apparatus (bone structure and inner-ear cavity). This could be linked with other findings from the site, such as the deliberate accumulation of corpses. All this would necessitate consideration of the capacity for symbolic thought.
The theory of the "Neolithic revolution" implies a diffusionist interpretation of the spread of innovations such as agriculture and pottery. On the other hand, it is argued that copper working at Los Millares (near Almería in Spain) during the chalcolithic period (beginning of the third millennium BC) could have arisen independently, together with an increase in agricultural yields due to irrigation as seen at the Cerro de la Virgen de Orce site, as well as walled settlements and social stratification.
During the first civilisations in the Middle East, the part played by the “Far Western” regions in long-distance metal trading was vital for the development there of Bronze Age metallurgical techniques. Next, around 1000BC, Iron Age metallurgy was introduced simultaneously but independently to Iberia by Mediterranean colonisers (Greek and Phoenician) on the southern and eastern coasts, and by Celts from Central Europe in the centre, west and north. Less is known of the introduction of other technologies such as the wheel, the plough and the sail.