Slopes of the Castle

Project leaders:

Juan Antonio López Padilla / [email protected]

Fco. Javier Jover Maestre / [email protected]

Between 3 June and 12 July, the first campaign of systematic excavations was carried out at the Argaric site of Laderas del Castillo, located in the town of Callosa de Segura in Alicante.

This is the first of a series of actions in the field that over the next few years will bring to light the ruins of what was once an ancient Bronze Age settlement, preliminarily estimated to cover an area of around 20,000 m², making it one of the largest and most important settlements of this period.

The site, which belongs to what is known in Spanish prehistory as the 'Culture of El Argar', began to be excavated in the first decades of the last century, without any research having been carried out in the field since then. An important collection of objects from those excavations is conserved in the MARQ and also in the Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya, while in the refurbished Municipal Archaeological Museum of Callosa de Segura, soon to be opened, there is also an important collection of pieces collected over the years on the slopes of the mountain range on which the site is located.

Panoramic view of the structures discovered during the excavation at Laderas del Castillo.

A large number of students and university graduates from Alicante, Albacete, Murcia, Salamanca and Barcelona, among others, collaborated in the excavation work, which was carried out within the framework of an agreement signed between the Diputación de Alicante and the Callosa de Segura Town Council. In addition, there has been the collaboration of technicians and municipal staff and also with a brigade of workers from the company Alebus.

View of the excavation work carried out in June and July 2013 on the eastern slope of the site of Laderas del Castillo.

Although the definitive results will not be known until the study of the materials recorded is completed and the first radiocarbon dates are available, the data suggest that the settlement of Laderas del Castillo must have been established very early, at least as far back as the year 2000 B.C. More than 4,000 years ago, therefore, this part of Alicante was the site of a large settlement whose urban planning was organised on the basis of large terraces built with terraces made of stone. Therefore, more than 4,000 years ago, this part of Alicante was home to a large settlement whose urban planning was organised on the basis of large terraces built with large stone blocks, on which the walls and roofs of the houses were built. Excavations have so far documented up to three of these dwellings, each built on the collapsed and destroyed foundations of the previous houses. The floors of these houses have yielded various objects related to the activities carried out inside them: jars, bowls and pottery pots - some of them decorated and in several cases containing charred cereals - hammers and stone mills, copper awls and metal utensils and some mother-of-pearl and ivory ornaments, to name but a few of the pieces found.

It is to be expected that in the coming years the excavations will provide much more information about the daily life of the inhabitants of Laderas del Castillo and their cultural relations with other contemporary societies in the surrounding area.