URDAIBAI contains numerous archaeological sites and historical remains, many of them highly valuable for understanding the successive stages of human presence in the region and how human beings have shaped the landscape.
The oldest remains in the area are those found in the caves of Santimamiñe in Kortezubi, which belong to an early culture dating from the Upper Palaeolithic (35,000 – 18,000 BC), but human activity did not really begin to transform the land until early Christian times, when people gradually established permanent settlements and began to turn the original forest cover of the region into a landscape more like the one we see today.
The founding of the first towns (Bermeo in 1236, Gernika and Gerrikaitz in 1366 and Errigoiti in 1376) resulted in a great increase in trade and in iron-working. Iron production from the area’s forges was at its peak from the 13th to the 15th centuries.
The leading role in terms of social and political organisation was taken by the Judicial District of Busturia. It was in the shade of an oak tree before the shrine and chapel of La Antigua (Gernika), where the Assembly Hall now stands, that the Assemblies of the representatives of the villages of Bizkaia took place, and it was there that the Lords of Bizkaia took their oath to uphold the local code of law.
The archaeological and historical sites in URDAIBAIare covered specifically by the URDAIBAI, Biosphere Reserve Protection and Structuring Act (Act 5/1989), which grants special protected status to both caves and open-air sites.
