"For thousands of years, people have passed back and forth across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to North Africa blending the artistic, cultural, and religious traditions of both regions into the Spain we know today...
The most infamous interaction between North Africa and Southern Spain came in 711, when Islamic North Africans took control of the Iberian peninsula and held it, despite strong opposition, for more than 700 years...
Recent studies have shown that many of modern Spain’s inhabitants have a significant amount of African ancestry, presumably from this time period. This is apparently true of the vast majority of Southern Europeans including Italians and Greeks, as well as the Spanish.
Yet this blended ancestry is very rarely acknowledged, especially now as anti-African sentiment seems to be on the rise in Spain"
I feel like, in a different version of history, the area around the Mediterranean would have been considered its own region. It kind of sparked everything that happened in Europe, at least, and had huge impacts on East Africa and the Middle East.
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