Ancient revelations in Rojales
EXCAVATIONS at the Cabezo del Molino in Rojales have discovered several Iberian kilns that could indicate that there was an important industrial complex at the site between the fourth and third centuries BC.
T his is the third campaign carried out under the Alicante museum of archaeology ( MARQ) programme of excavations.
After three weeks of field work in Sierra de la Bernarda, it was established that the area had been occupied about a thousand years before the previously discovered Byzantine necropolis was installed there.
According to the MARQ, the ovens demonstrate the strategic importance that the hills nearest the Segura river had in antiquity, not only for their high productive capacity but also for establishing routes along which nearby settlements could access rare raw materials such as lead.
The work, directed by María Teresa Ximénez de Embún and Juan Antonio López Padilla, also continued the excavation of the necropolis that began in 2018.
Provincial deputy for culture Julia Parra congratulated the whole team for the discoveries, which the provincial government funded with € 38,000.
The rigorous documentation of this kind of funereal complex has enabled the MARQ to lead a European study of migratory processes and mobility of people in the ancient world and the early Middle Ages.
The project, called Population dynamics in Late Roman and Medieval Alicante,
is being led by MARQ director Manuel Olcina, Sra Ximénez of the MARQ foundation, and Dr Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute in Jena ( Germany).
It focuses on the genetic characteristics of populations by reconstructing the genotypes of 80 individuals discovered in necropolises around Alicante province, including the Cabezo del Molino and the Islamic Maqbara at Tossal de Manises in Alicante.