<< Text Pages >> Los Silillos - Ancient Village or Settlement in Spain in Andalucía
Submitted by C_Michael_Hogan on Saturday, 17 November 2007 Page Views: 14865
Multi-periodSite Name: Los SilillosCountry: Spain
NOTE: This site is 20.601 km away from the location you searched for.
Region: Andalucía Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Antequera
Latitude: 37.120000N Longitude: 4.57W
Condition:
| 5 | Perfect |
| 4 | Almost Perfect |
| 3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
| 2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
| 1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
| 0 | No data. |
| -1 | Completely destroyed |
| 5 | Superb |
| 4 | Good |
| 3 | Ordinary |
| 2 | Not Good |
| 1 | Awful |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
| 4 | Short walk on a footpath |
| 3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
| 2 | A long walk |
| 1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
| 4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
| 3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
| 2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
| 1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
| 0 | no data |
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Los Silillos is the site of a Bronze Age prehistoric settlement covering an area of 180,000 square metres. The discovery was made in 2007 during excavation work in constructing the A-45 Motorway on Spain's Iberian Peninsula. (EFE, 2007)
The site is located approximately nine kilomtres north of the town of Antequera. The discovery includes architectural elements of 52 subterranean structures, which are only a portion of the numerous circular dwellings built by prehistoric peoples here. Farming implements and copper tools found at Los Silillos have been dated to 2500 BC by researchers at Malaga University. It is thought that some of the tools found at Los Silillos may have been employed in constructing dolmen burial mounds at nearby Antequera.
Manuel Romero, the Antequera municipal archaeologist, indicated that only about two percent of the total Los Silillos site has been excavated as of October, 2007. Romero further stated that ongoing research is occurring for the site, including more precise radiocarbon dating in Switzerland. Animal relics retrieved on the site include fossilised ram horns and deer antlers. The Los Silillos site at an elevation of approximately 435 metres is situated in an agricultural valley between Antequera and Cordoba.
REGIONAL PREHISTORY. There is extensive prehistoric settlement in this region of southern Spain, probably linked to the mild climate, rich mineral resources of the Iberian Pyrite Belt (Leistel, 1997) and proximity of the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to Neanderthal presence and the Magdelanian paleolithic era cave painters, other Iberian settlements of the approximate age of Los Silillos in this region include the Chalcolithic settlement of Los Millares and Neolithic finds at Cabrera.
Somewhat to the east of Los Silillos, scientists have recently conducted core drilling to reconstruct the natural history of 1900 BC Argaric settlements. They found that rich deciduous forests once covered much of the region; however, the thriving Bronze Age Argaric peoples stripped the trees to such an extent that the ecology was transformed to an agriculturally unproductive, arid Mediterranean scrub. While climate change may have played a subordinate role, the Argaric civilisation itself appears to have caused its own demise by unwise resource management. The resulting degradation of soils and appears to have "caused the collapse of agriculture and pastoralism, the foundation of the Argaric economy", and hence a "massive depopulation". (BBC, 2007)
REFERENCES
* EFE News as reported by Spain News: Costa del Sol (2007) ‘'Prehistoric settlement unearthed near Antequera'‘. Oct 9, 2007
* J. M. Leistel, E. Marcoux, D. Thiéblemont, C. Quesada, A. Sánchez, G. R. Almodóvar, E. Pascual and R. Sáez (December, 1997) ‘'The volcanic-hosted massive sulphide deposits of the Iberian Pyrite Belt Review and preface to the Thematic Issue'‘, Journal Mineralium Deposita, Publisher:Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, ISSN 0026-4598 (Print) 1432-1866 (Online); Volume 33, Numbers 1-2
* BBC News (Nov. 15, 2007) ‘'Eco-ruin 'felled early society'‘'
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