La Atalaya archaeological site
A window to Pinto's Prehistory
La Atalaya archaeological site
It is located west of the town of Pinto, between the railway and the M-506 and M-408 roads. The area presents a topography with gentle undulations, the culminating point of which is a small and elongated elevation of the terrain, the top of which reaches 622 m altitude, from which the name of Atalaya comes.
The site occupies a total area of 11 hectares. It is of the "hole field" type, in which a total of 859 structures have been documented, all of them pits dug in the geological terrain: storage silos, generally circular buckets, sloping or straight walls and flat and irregular bottoms. In the entire site, no type of soil has been found, nor have any post marks, remains of foundation trenches or structures that can be clearly identified as dwellings.
It is worth noting the discovery of two burials without grave goods in a silo. It is a man and a woman of adulthood who are missing the skull. There are also extremely scarce remains of other individuals in some structures.
The ceramic material located within the different structures, which amounts to more than 42.000 fragments, mostly belongs to common ceramic pieces. Said pottery is decorated, by means of incisions and impressions, with decorative motifs such as herringbones, wolf teeth, zigzags, lines and small circles.
The lithic industry documented is made in 90% of the cases in gray flint. The presence of more than 350 nuclei stands out, of which almost a third are polyhedral. Various types of tools have been recovered: knives, denticulates, scrapers, arrowheads, some granite mill fragments and numerous hammers used as hammers to carve flint.
The bone industry is also abundant. Beveled punches made from sheep and goat bones, spatulas, a needle, a pierced dog tusk, three circular necklace beads and two deer bone tools have been identified.
Among the remains of fauna, ovicápridos (sheep and goats) predominate. Canids (family that can include dogs, wolves, foxes and coyotes) and suidae (pigs and wild boars) are also identified. Most of the skeletal remains appear highly fragmented and deteriorated. It is possible to determine that the domestic fauna constitutes the biggest meat base, since the percentages of wild fauna are minimal, identifying only rabbit, hare and deer. The appearance of horse remains is rather testimonial and is linked, more to hunting than to domestication.
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Archaeological performance
The site of the Watchtower was located during the archaeological activities prior to the development of the construction project for Sector S-4 "Expansion of the Matéu-Cromo Industrial Estate" in Pinto, where the construction of houses was planned, as well as the creation of spaces dedicated to uses of transformation industry and green areas.