Gonzalo,
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I have some doubts about the work of Forton.
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In a post I made some time ago, i did write that his magnum opus is in need of a revison/update, but I believe that Forton is now 87yrs old, so this is unlikely happen.
With that said, I think that until something better comes along, we have to go with his views, even if we entertain some doubts, because otherwise we are left with guesses based on personal fancy.
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The locking mechanism "de muelle" (spring loaded) is present since the early "Spanish" navajas, but dating the specific carraca mechanism to so early date gives me some of these doubts.
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Dating navajas is problematic, but in his book he shows photos of navajas with carracas that he attributes to the 18th century. Their appearance is certainly more primitive than what became more or less normative in the 19th century. I imagine that there may be paintings or drawings from that century that depict these navajas.
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The other, more important point about Forton: navajas were presumably known and used in this area since the Roman times. The original navaja from Albacete is attributed to the muslim culture in its stytilistic features. Albacete was founded by the muslim rulers (the city of Al-Basit), and was famous for its muslim knifemakers since that time.
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He deals with the origins of the navaja at some length and concluded that the earliest reliably dated folding clasp knife that has been able to find goes back to 1699, but I have to point out that it is quite unlike what we would call a `navaja'.
Having stated this, he goes on to say that the navaja made its appearance in the 17th century, being mentioned by Cervantes as weapons, but these early references do not describe them with any precision, so all we know is that they were folding knives. Well, my take on this is that barber's razors go back to ancient times and also were used violently at times so....
As you rightly point out, folding knives have been around since Roman times, so the birth of the classical navaja, for lack of a better term, is a matter of arbitrary definition based on typology.
For what it is worth, my guess is that there must have been an evolutionary period commencing around 1600, made possible by metallurgical and lockwork advances of the renaissance, and which was given a major impetus by the banning of weapons in Spain, culminating in the classical navaja.
There are many who speculate on an earlier origin of the classical navaja, but the major obstacle to this is that a) there is no hard substantive evidence, and b) fixed blade knives were in all ways better as both tools and weapons, so why bother with complicated and labor intensive mechanisms?
The major problem with the study of the navaja is that it was an instrument that pertained to the illiterate plebes and was treated with disdain by the upper classes. As such its origins go undocumented and are lost in the mist of time.
Cheers
Chris