Our archaeologists have uncovered how a border community once sheltered strangers fleeing violence, a stark contrast to the difficult experiences faced by many refugees and people on the move at Europe's borders today.
Led by Dr Rui Gomes Coelho, Assistant Professor in Historical Archaeology, the research demonstrates ordinary people’s attitudes to hospitality and solidarity in 20th century Europe.
The research focused on Cambedo, a small village on the Portugal-Galicia border. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), its people quietly sheltered refugees and anti-fascist fighters crossing the frontier, often at great personal risk.
In December 1946 the Portuguese army surrounded the village to punish that solidarity, firing mortars, damaging homes and arresting residents.
The research team excavated the ruins of a bombed house, once home to Albertina Tiago, recovering everyday objects alongside fragments of mortar shrapnel.
The modest objects recovered at Cambedo reveal a peasant community that had very little, yet still built an everyday ethic of solidarity. Scarcity was no reason to turn away those in need.
Across Europe today, hostility towards refugees and people on the move has become almost natural, even within mainstream politics, under pressure from the far right. Cambedo reminds us that ordinary people have long chosen to support others in need, often at real cost. That history offers another way of imagining how we live together.
Dr Coelho’s research highlights that people fleeing conflict and poverty continue to face violence and danger whilst attempting to cross borders, from the Mediterranean to the English Channel.
The research has now helped to inspire the play “Cambedo 1946” by Teatro de Balugas. The play recently won Best International Production at Spain’s national awards for amateur theatre, the Escenamateur Juan Mayorga awards.
The study is part of a journal special issue, co-edited by Dr Coelho, on histories of resistance against oppression and political violence across Europe, from Finland to Greece.
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