HISTORY
The earliest remains found date back to the Middle Neolithic period. They were discovered at the Las Catorce Fanegas site, which is associated with the Cave Culture. Noteworthy finds include a globular-bellied vessel and a fragment of a grey limestone bracelet. This site's potential suggests historical continuity of settlement within the Chauchina area.
Later in history, material remains were found in the territory, including an Iberian coin from Cástulo that was discovered at the Casería de San Francisco. Rome arrived in this area at the end of the 3rd century BC, after the Second Punic War. Politically and administratively, the Vega territory was assigned to Ilíberis, and economically, to Rome.
During the Islamic occupation, Chauchina became a hamlet and part of its territory was drained and incorporated into the agricultural system. A defensive military tower dating from that period remains in Romilla, connected to a system of Nasrid-era towers.
Chauchina is first recorded as a hamlet in the delimitation of the municipality of Granada, and although the Moriscos retained their lands in the Repartimiento de Santa Fe (Santa Fe Distribution), the new settlers accumulated land in part of the territory.
Following the Peninsular War, part of the area surrounding the town was incorporated into the jurisdiction of the Duke of Wellington and his successors by decree. The disentailment laws of the nineteenth century then led to the sale of some of the land.
According to Madoz, in the mid-nineteenth century Chauchina had 360 houses, almost all of which were made of adobe, except for the more recently built ones which were made of brick. The town had a spacious square known as the Plaza del Mercado (Market Square), as well as a town hall and a prison in the same building, and a primary school endowed with 20 reales a day. Madoz states that Chauchina began as two separate houses called 'Las Chauchinas', upper and lower, which slowly grew to reach the importance it had in the 1850s.