La Cabilda site

The works carried out at the La Cabilda site are the result of the combined efforts of different teams of professionals. The social archeology model, which had obtained very positive results in previous archaeological activities, was favorably received both by the institutions involved and by the successive teams that have taken charge of the investigation. After eight excavation campaigns, we can affirm that we are facing a rural village of modest dimensions, which remained active around the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries.

La Cabilda is a settlement located in the Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, which has its genesis in early medieval times. For the moment, domestic, productive, funerary and possibly cult environments have been identified. The domestic units were located around productive spaces of a community nature in which activities typical of a mixed economy with a strong agricultural base would be carried out, complemented by the use of environmental resources such as hunting, gathering and exploitation of resources. stones, in addition to trade with other enclaves.

The intervention in La Cabilda has created a strong link between the current inhabitants of the town and the site. The works have been oriented to bring to the non-specialized public the knowledge obtained by the professionals who have intervened in the project. Throughout these years, more than a hundred volunteers have participated in the excavations, with very different profiles both in age and occupation, from 18 to 70 years old and from sociologists to photographers, film directors and editors, amas from home, historians, retired scientists and engineers, students and the military. 

A local association, El Ponderal, has been created to continue research and dissemination of cultural and heritage issues in the municipality. In addition, the educational community has participated annually in the projects and the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage has organized, in collaboration with the Hoyo de Manzanares City Council, family workshops within the framework of the program Archaeologists for a day to jointly discover archeology as a scientific discipline.

The La Cabilda Site has been the subject of archaeological excavations since 2014, within the Social Archeology project and consolidation, conditioning and enhancement campaigns, as well as interpretation of its landscape environment. Approach paths and associated information have been created through the conservation and protection of the site and its empowerment for cultural tourism.

The site is a rural settlement, whose chronology is between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries AD. C., revealing itself as an important enclave in which a populated area appears, a burial area and probably a cult area linked to the hermitage of Santa Ana, around which the municipal cemetery was installed in the XNUMXth century.

The evidence of a basic rural nucleus of the late antique period in the center of the Plateau, both with houses and with storage spaces and domestic dependencies, tells us of a society where economic activities of exploitation of the environment predominate, primarily agricultural. The archaeological verification of the existence of an Emiral phase in the chronology of the site has been very important.

During the 2022 campaigns, the large number of structures exhumed in the previous campaign have been restored, especially in the Central and Southern Areas, to complete the archaeological interventions.