Castellers

By Laia Esquerrà, Victoria Englert and Xènia Nogué

UNESCO has just declared "els Castellers" part of the World Heritage. Now they are better protected than before and it is more unlikely this tradition disappears.

The entire Catalan population, and most especially "les colles de castellers", are very happy about this declaration because it is a very important measure.

The castells are a very old Catalan tradition. They started in the Tarragona area with only one or two colles; now there are more than 60. They have existed for 200 years and they share a common origin with the muixeranga, which is typical of Valencia but differs in the fact that it has religious elements.

The castellers grew in popularity in 1981 when the first nine-level castells were achieved. A castell involves building human towers with one to five people on each level, to the highest level possible. There are only five teams who have been able to build "gamma-extra" castells. The most recent one was a "3 de 10", which means ten levels consisting of three people on each level. It is a sport that requires a great deal of strength, balance, courage and intelligence. The lowest levels are made up of the biggest and strongest members, while the highest feature little kids aged four and five. Anybody who climbs up the castell has to be very agile and able to climb very fast. Castells normally have eight or nine levels so those underneath have to support very great weights. They wear sashes to protect their backs. A coloured shirt and some white trousers form the typical costume of the castellers. There are six positions in one castle. The most important are the twos (dosos), the lifter (aixecador) and the rider (anxeneta). Four kids comprise the top group (pom de dalt).

Castellers have now been exported to Chile, where they are used as therapy for children with problems.

Miquel Barceló. La Solitude Organisative

By Laia Esquerrà and Xènia Nogué

In November 2010 we went to the Caixa Forum to see Miquel Barceló’s latest exhibition, called La Solitude Organisative, which featured some of his best paintings. We went through the exhibition with a guide who explained the meaning of each painting.

Miquel Barceló is a famous artist born in Felanitx, Mallorca, in 1957. He started studying in the Escuela de Artes Decorativas in Palma, Mallorca, and after that he tried to study Fine Art in Barcelona but he was never able to finish any degree.

Miquel Barceló is the highest earning artist in Spain. He uses many shades of paint, plaster, clay, etc., and has also developed many methods for producing his paintings. He almost always uses a water spout to paint the biggest areas. He sometimes uses a 40 cm paintbrush or walks on the painting. He uses everyday objects, such as like rice, spaghettis, or shoes,. He usually leaves one of the objects he used to make the painting on it. Lately he has been trying to hang up his work and paint from underneath. His most recent work was the Dome of the United Nations in Ginebra.

Miquel Barceló is a figurative artist. Although no clearly defined objects can ever be seen in his painting, there is always something, a desert, a face, a canoe... and all his paintings have a meaning and form part of his life. Miquel Barceló never searches for anything, he finds. He does not start a drawing with any specific idea; he just throws paint on it and waits. He also uses nature to create his paintings. Sometimes he dips paintings in the sea or leaves them out to be modified by insects...

Buffalo Bill

By Laia Esquerrà

William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, was born near Le Claire, Iowa (United States) on February 26th 1845. He was a soldier, a buffalo hunter (hence his nickname) and a showman. He provided one of the most representative images of the Far West through the many shows he performed. He died in 1917 and was buried in a mountain near Denver, in Colorado.

A hard childhood

Cody lost his older brother at the age of seven and the family had to move to Kansas. His father died in 1857, so young Bill had to start working to support the family. He started as a messenger boy and then went on to be an unofficial explorer for the US Army. At the age of 14 he became a rider for the Pony Express. He also tried to be a soldier but was not accepted until 1863 because he was under age.

Calm years

Back in the Army, he officially became an explorer. He reconnoitred the nation’s territories and started hunting buffalos. He was given a Medal of Honour by the Army, although this was revoked after his death and only restored in 1989. In 1895 he moved to Wyoming and founded a hotel in the city centre. He lived for many years in the Yellowstone National Park, close to his family.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West

During these years, when spectacular shows were very popular, he joined “Pawnee Bill's” and devised his own show. He started travelling in Europe and all over the United States. In his show he presented people from different cultures, along with their horses. Each horseman wore the distinctive costume of his ethnic group and showed off his prowess. Famous figures such as Sitting Bull and Annie Oakley also appeared in the show, and real cowboys and Indians were also involved.

Buffalo performed stories about the Pony Express, as well as Indian attacks on road convoys. By the end of the 19th century the Cody Company had become the most famous of its kind in the world and in the early years of the 20th century Buffalo Bill was reportedly the most famous person in the world.

Barcelona

Buffalo Bill came to present his show in Barcelona on December 18th 1889. Barcelona was the only city in Spain to put on the show but little information is available about his stay. He presented his show for just one peseta on the corner of Aribau and Muntaner streets for five weeks.

There are many stories about his stay but most are not true. It is said, for example, that two Indians kidnapped two little girls from Gracia to eat them, and also that two of Cody’s Indians died here and are buried in Montjuïc or Poblenou. One story that is true is that two of his Indians caught smallpox and were admitted to the Hospital de la Sta. Creu i St. Pau (both survived).

After performing the show in Barcelona, the whole company moved on to Naples.

The books

In 1998 Jordi Marill Escudé wrote a book about Buffalo Bill's show. It was called That Winter. Buffalo Bill's show in Barcelona.

In November 2010, another book was published on the subject. It was written by Jordi Solé, who presented it on November 22nd in the Bertran Barcelona bookshop. It is entitled Barcelona Far West and it is a report about Bufalo Bill’s stay in Barcelona. The opening chapter can be read here: http://www.edicionespamies.com/libros.php?libro=75.

Atapuerca

By Victoria Englert

The fossils found in Atapuerca have altered our ideas about human evolution. The investigations conducted in Atapuerca have changed our genealogical tree: it has been discovered that we have new ancestors and we now know more than we did before. At the same time, these findings have motivated other countries, such as Israel and France, to continue researching.

The team of scientists and researchers who worked on this site received the "Príncipe de Asturias de Investigación Científica y Técnica" Prize in 1997 and, thanks to their discoveries, Atapuerca has been listed as a World Heritage Site.

The Atapuerca Mountains are located in Burgos, and they contain several caves where fossils and tools of the early hominians have been found.

These sites were discovered during the construction of a railway line in the cave of Sima de los Huesos in 1992. Two years later, Francisco Jordá Cerdá led an expedition there, which so far has found approximately 2,500 human remains dating from the Bronze Age to the modern era.

There are several sites in Atapuerca. One of these is the Gran Dolina, home to the most ancient European human remains found to date, a total of 80 pieces from six individuals who lived over 780,000 years ago. The fossils found here provide clear evidence of cannibalism. The bones have several marks made for the purpose of extracting flesh and membranes. They also have marks made from blows to the bone to extract the spinal cord, as well as fractures caused by breaking bones with bare hands. Trinchera del Elefante contains the oldest elements found in Atapuerca, probably dating from one million years ago, while Galería's sediments contain fossils dating from between 200,000 and 400,000 years. And, last but not least, there is Sima del Elefante, where 3,000 human fossil remains aged from 50,000 and 300,000 years have been found.

Two types of species have been found on the Atapuerca archeological site:

-Homo Antecessor: This was the first set of remains found in 1997. He lived 80,000 years ago and was the ancestor of Homo Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens. The remains of this species, found in the cave of Sima del Elefante, have been decisive in proving that this was the first species that appeared in Europe and that it did not originate in Africa, as was previously believed.

-Homo Hedilbergensis: He lived in Atapuerca 300,000 years ago. The bones of at least 32 of these people have been found in the Sima de los Huesos.

How did they die?

Anthropologists have been able to figure out the date of their death by studying the evolution of their teeth and the development of their skeleton. The teeth of the hominids can be compared to those of today’s population. It is believed that these hominids placed the bones of those who died in the Atapuerca area.

Eudald Carbonell: the current leader of the expedition

Eudald Carbonell i Roure was born in Girona on 17th February 1953. He is a Spanish archaeologist, anthropologist and palaeontologist who studied in Barcelona, Girona and Paris. He received one doctorate in geology from the Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris (1986), and another in history from the University of Barcelona (1988). He is now head of the Autoecología Humana del Cuaternario group and the director of the Institut Català de Paleontologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES). He has made research trips to France, Italy, Georgia, Tajikistan, Argelia, Morocco, Slovenia, Croatia, Tanzania, Kenya, the USA, Mexico, Cuba, China, Australia and many other countries.

At an early age he started investigating the early colonies in the valley of the Ter and Freser River and joined the Archaeological Association of Girona.

Eudald Carbonell has made several appearances on TV shows; TV3 even has a website for the show called Sota terra (Underground). This link provides more information about the show: http://www.tv3.cat/sotaterra/equip/eudaldcarbonell

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