Early human history of the territory ;Prehistory and protohistory The presents material linked to the transition from earlier settlers to the Early
Acheulean. Archaeological sites related to the Middle Acheulean in the current-day region lie on the
Campo de Calatrava as well as in the source of the Villanueva river, the
Guadiana catchment area and the
Segura catchment area. The Upper Acheulean sites are mostly located within the limits of the current-day province of Ciudad Real, substantially increasing in number and territorial spread across the region for the ensuing
Middle Paleolithic. The
Upper Paleolithic in the region presents instances of the
art of the Upper Paleolithic in the Serranía del Alto Tajo and the Upper
Júcar. There are instances of
Cardium pottery in Caudete from the
Early Neolithic. The natural region of
La Mancha presents a number of archaeological sites related to the so-called
Culture of Las Motillas of the
Bronze Age, tentatively considered as the earliest reported case of human culture in Western Europe able to implement a system of underground water collection, whose installment is possibly connected to the surface water crisis caused by the
4.2 kiloyear event. A number of these Bronze Age settlements, the
motillas, were built over
Chalcolithic settlements. During the
Iron Age II (La Tène culture), the territory occupied by the current provinces of Ciudad Real and Albacete had a larger influence from
Punic-
Phoenician and
Greek colonists, while the territory occupied by the current provinces of Toledo, Guadalajara and Cuenca was more influenced by the substrate of the earlier
Atlantic Bronze, helping to line up the diffuse separation of two large groups of pre-Roman peoples ("
Iberi" and "
Celtiberi"). Iberian-related peoples dwelling the southern rim of the inner plateau such as the
Oretani and
Contestani were organised in tribes ruled by a kinglet or chieftain, each one controlling a number of settlements. The main cog of the Iberian form of settlement was the
oppidum. From the 7th century BC onward, the Celtiberian settlements were characterised instead by the somewhat smaller
castros. ;Antiquity In the 2nd century BC, by the time of the advent of the Roman conquest wars, the first actual cities had begun to grow in the inner plateau. The Roman conquest brought substantial transformations to the
Carpetani urban settlements, including the social division between slaves and freemen, the monetary economy, the fostering of manufacture and trade or the new
Roman acculturation. The territory of the current region was mining-rich in Antiquity, with mentions in classical sources to the mining of
cinnabar from , silver, gold and other minerals such as
selenite from
Segobriga and the
laminitana sharpening stone. ;Middle Ages history as illustrated in the 976
Codex Vigilanus. Built from scratch on state initiative, the founding of the city of
Reccopolis by Visigoths in the late 6th century was a singular development in the context of the
European Early Middle Ages. Following the 8th century
Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, just after the 741
Berber Revolt, the so-called
Middle March of
Al-Andalus (
al-Ťāğr al-Awsat) was created as territorial sub-division, existing for the rest of the ensuing emiral and caliphal period of Al-Andalus. During this era, the Middle March had eminently a military nature, both shielding the core of Al-Andalus from the raids of the Northern Christian polities as well as serving as staging ground for Muslim offensive campaigns against the former. Berber clans such as the
Masmuda Banu-Salim (linked to the founders of
Guadalajara) or the
Hawwara Banu Zennun (based in the ) had an important role in the Muslim settlement of parts of the Middle March. The city of Toledo stood distinctly unruly towards the Cordobese authorities, and remained a major city of al-Andalus, preserving quite of its former importance and hosting a leading cultural centre that lasted even after the Christian conquest. As consequence of the
fitna of al-Andalus in the early 11th century, an independent polity with its center in Toledo (the
Taifa of Toledo), emerged, roughly occupying the territory of the current-day provinces of Toledo, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara and Cuenca (as well as that of Madrid), to the Master of the Order of Santiago in 1174. Following the Christian conquest of Toledo in 1085, the ensuing unsuccessful attempts by North-African
Almoravids and
Almohads to take the city turned the territory of the inner plateau south of the
Tagus subject to extreme warfare for about a century and a half. The military insecurity south of the Tagus constrained the colonisation process undertaken by the new Castilian rulers. This underpinned the features of a sparse population in the region; as a result, ranching became a mainstay of the economy, which later led to the leading role of the
military orders. The latter controlled over 20,000 km2 in the region of "
La Mancha", managed from just 25 castles. The weak Christian grip over the territory collapsed after their crushing defeat from the Almohads in
Alarcos (1195). Christian control south of the Tagus would only start to consolidate after the 1212
battle of Las Navas. The weak settlement and insecurity also allowed for countryside
banditry (the so-called
golfines) in the area of the
Montes de Toledo until its progressive quelling, already effective by the late 13th century. By that time, rural
beekeepers self-organised to repel the predatory practices in the by the golfines, whose presence in the Montes de Toledo was further obliterated by the creation of the so-called
hermandades viejas by councils at Toledo, Talavera or Villa Real in the dawn of the 14th century. Despite a poorly representative degree of permeability,
urban oligarchies in the current-day region during the Late Middle Ages were largely perpetuated by means of lineage, through inheritance and marriage. Following the ascension of the
Trastámaras, the territory of the current-day province of Toledo underwent a process of seigneuralization, and a number of non-religious lordships were progressively created in the area. The 15th century also brought a growing importance of the political elites belonging to towns of the southern meseta in the affairs of the Crown of Castile relative to the prior uncontested preponderance of those elites from towns north of the Sistema Central. ;Modern history s in the Guadiana, a historically major grain milling centre in La Mancha. Throughout the 18th century, following the
War of Spanish Succession, the
Spanish Bourbon monarchs sought to equilibrate the
commercial balance with the exterior carrying out an economic policy that tried to foster industrial capacity through
economic interventionism. The State shall either stimulate the capacity of private capital or simply provide the capital itself. Examples of royal manufactures created in the 18th century included the Real Fábrica de Paños in Guadalajara, the in Talavera de la Reina, or the in
Brihuega. The current provincial configuration roughly dates from the
1833 division by Javier de Burgos, establishing the outline of the modern provinces of
Albacete,
Ciudad Real,
Cuenca,
Guadalajara and
Toledo, bar relatively minor later adjustments. Albacete was part, together with
Murcia of a wider region, whereas Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Toledo formed a region together with the
Province of Madrid, "New Castile". The justice administration stood in between the national and provincial levels of government (also unaligned with the purported regional classification insofar Albacete is concerned), with the
audiencia of Albacete managing the provinces of Albacete, Cuenca and Ciudad Real, and the
audiencia of Madrid managing the provinces of Toledo and Guadalajara (and that of Madrid). The aforementioned modifications to the 1833 division include the party of Villena (lost by Albacete to
Alicante in 1836), Requena (lost by Cuenca to
Valencia in 1851),
Villarrobledo (lost by Ciudad Real to Albacete ) or
Valdeavero (lost by Guadalajara to
Madrid in 1850). The provincial government institution was the
provincial deputation. , by Casiano Alguacil. The agrarian capitalism favoured by the bourgeoisie in the 19th century enshrined an economy based on cereal commodities and the primary sector, favouring the leveling of the reduced industrial activity—chiefly textile—in the territory corresponding to the current-day region, whereas mining output—with sites such of the mercury deposits in Almadén or the coal deposits in Puertollano—remained below potential. A
silver rush broke out in the mining district around
Hiendelaencina after 1844. Large-scale mining of
lead and
zinc in San Quintín (province of Ciudad Real) ensued in between 1884 and 1934. The arrival of railway transport in the mid 19th-century subordinated the interests of the provinces to those of Madrid and the
Levante, although it fostered the development of some urban centres such as those of
Alcázar de San Juan,
Manzanares and
Albacete. The five provinces lost relative demographic weight relative to the national total over the course of the century. The territory of the current-day region was singularly affected by the
desamortizaciones, particularly those of Mendizábal and Madoz. Seeking to curb immigration to the Spanish capital, the so-called Madrid Decongestion Plan of 1959 created planned industrial estates in Alcázar de San Juan, Manzanares, Guadalajara, and Toledo. The plan did not yield the expected results as Madrid kept growing and the industrial zones eventually stagnated.
Regionhood Under the auspices of the
1978 Constitution, a
decree-law was issued on 15 November 1978, establishing the conditions of the "pre-autonomous regime" of the "Castilian-Manchegan region". A joint assembly of legislators and
provincial deputies of the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Toledo was established in
Manzanares in 1981 to draft the early sketch of the regional statute. On 17 June 1982, the
Congress of Deputies approved the final text of the regional statute (an
organic law), which was later published on 16 August 1982, giving birth to the
autonomous community of "Castilla-La Mancha". The constituent process of the autonomous community was sealed with the
election of the first regional legislature in May 1983 and the ensuing investiture of
José Bono as regional president. By December 1983 still less than half of citizens actually knew the autonomous community they belonged to. Since its opening in 1979 the
Tagus-Segura Water Transfer has caused a severe social-economic impact on the region, with the water resources available in the Tagus headwaters decreasing by about a 47.5% after 1980. == Official symbols ==