Late ancient necropolis the Dehesa de la Oliva
An ancient city in the last escarpments of the mountains
The late ancient necropolis of the Dehesa de la Oliva
The Dehesa de la Oliva deposit is located northeast of the two population centers of Patones (de Arriba and de Abajo), practically on the border of the Community of Madrid with the province of Guadalajara. It is located in an elevation that is part of the serrezuela called “Las Calerizas”, a band of Cretaceous limestone that extends from Torrelaguna to the town of Valdepeñas de la Sierra.
The place visually dominates the confluence of the Lozoya and Jarama rivers and the plains that extend to the south, combining strategic control of the surrounding territory with the natural defenses offered by its location. It is made up of two wide platforms that have a marked slope towards the valley of the nearby Jarama River. The upper one, with an area of approximately 10 hectares, housed the oldest urban nucleus, from the late Roman-republican period, which perhaps has its roots in a previous Carpetan settlement, while the lower one, of an area close to 20 hectares, was occupied in Early medieval period, also using the unpopulated upper platform as a necropolis.
The site was protected by a wall of which only some sections survive today. The constructive differences observed in them suggest that they could be works of different chronology. The wall that includes the upper platform would be Roman, while the lower one may have been erected or modified in the Early Medieval period.
On the upper platform, a Latin-type urban nucleus emerged during the XNUMXst century BC, with an orthogonal design of streets that intersect at right angles and define rectangular plan blocks.
The houses, with facades on two streets, form long blocks that are clearly perceived in aerial photographs. They generally consist of three rooms and their walls are built with a limestone plinth on which the mud walls sit. The roof was of vegetal matter and the floors of packed earth. The place would be abandoned peacefully in the first third of the XNUMXst century after Christ, remaining uninhabited until the XNUMXth century AD. C., when the place is occupied again, settling on this occasion on the lower platform and using the old Roman ruins in the upper part as a funerary area. This enclave, of some importance judging by its size, will last until the VII-VIII centuries after Christ.
The early medieval necropolis
The settlers of the early medieval period used the highest part of the hill as a necropolis, excavating the tombs in the ruins of the old late-republican urban fabric. The graves occupy the interior of the old domestic dependencies, adapting to the disposition of the existing walls.
So far, a total of 33 tombs have been excavated, showing North-South and West-East orientations. Burials of different types have been identified: in a single grave, in cysts whose walls are lined with limestone or slate slabs and in cysts with masonry walls.
The corpses were wrapped in a shroud and placed directly in the grave or in a coffin, as evidenced by the nails found during archaeological excavations. Sometimes the graves are occupied by more than one individual, either because they belonged to the same family environment and had died at the same time or because it was a reuse of the grave. It has been possible to document a series of combinations of burials, especially of adults with children, as well as certain architectural elements combined in some cases with the remains of the pre-existing walls, which delimit specific physical spaces within the funeral area in the manner of pantheons.
The use of this area of the hill as a cemetery would have started in the mid or late XNUMXth century after Christ, remaining in use at least throughout the XNUMXth century AD. C.
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Archaeological performance
The site was discovered in the mid-1851th century during the works of the Canal del Jarama Layout Project, a new hydraulic transport infrastructure made by Canal de Isabel II through the site where the archaeological remains are located. There is certainty that previously part of the wall and the buildings of the old population that existed here had been dismantled for the production of lime on a large scale, used in the construction of the nearby dam of the Pontón de la Oliva between the years 1857 and XNUMX.
Archaeological excavation campaigns
The first intervention took place in 1952 under the direction of the engineer and archaeologist Emeterio Cuadrado, discoverer of the settlement that existed in this area. A few years later he directed two more campaigns. He also collaborated in the work carried out in 1974 with the sponsorship of the Spanish Association of Friends of Archeology, in the course of which a medieval necropolis was identified in the highest part of the site.
In 1990-91, during the cleaning of the areas investigated previously, two more tombs were identified and excavated and some sectors of the site's surroundings were explored, documenting new evidence of prehistoric occupations that came to add to those of the nearby Reguerillo cave. , declared a Monument of National Interest in 1944.
In 2005, work was resumed at the site, as it was included by the General Directorate of Historical Heritage in the Plan of Visitable Sites of the Community of Madrid. Two new graves were also excavated. The following year, the restoration and consolidation of the vestiges hitherto discovered for their subsequent museumization began.
In the 2007 campaign, information about the necropolis was expanded and a tomb associated with two older stone walls was excavated, which has been interpreted as a mausoleum. The following year, six more graves were excavated.
With the campaigns of 2009 and 2010, the existence of an extensive residential sector of high medieval chronology was confirmed in the lower platform of the place, to which the necropolis studied would belong. A planimetric survey of the entire site was carried out, in order to have a detailed cartography that would allow a global analysis of all the elements discovered until then.
During the 2013, 2014 and 2015 campaigns, the identification and documentation of structures belonging to the Roman and early medieval times continued.