This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Led by Dr. Rui Gomes Coelho, assistant professor of historical archaeology, the research reveals ordinary people's attitudes toward hospitality and solidarity in 20th-century Europe.
The work is published in the journal Historical Archaeology. 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 antifascist 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 toward 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," said Coelho of the Department of Archaeology. Coelho's research highlights that people fleeing conflict and poverty continue to face violence and danger while 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 theater, the Escenamateur Juan Mayorga awards. Rui Gomes Coelho et al., Cambedo, 1946: Letter on the Discovery of Portugal, Historical Archaeology (2026). DOI: 10.1007/s41636-026-00621-7 Rui Gomes Coelho et al., The Archaeology of Guerrillas in Europe: An Introduction, Historical Archaeology (2026).
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