roman house – la casa romana

ruin from the southeast – la ruina como visto del sureste

lower ridge formation – linea de sierra abajo

foundation – base

foundation – base

foundation – base

location map – mapa de colocacion

Site coordinates: 38.415253, -6.444951

Description: While walking one day on the ridge I met an old man who told me that “somewhere down there” was a “Roman house”. Now I can’t say certainly whether this structure was indeed inhabited by an Italian, but I did find this and this directly below it on the mountain slope.

The structure appears to be circular and is situated on a lower, minor ridge on the southeast mountainside. There’s a heavy concentration of pottery sherds along this lower ridge. The structure appears in a photo dated 2001 in Patromonio Oculto de Zafra by Jose Antonio Amador Redondo. In this photo, portions of walls remain; today, the structure is ruined to its foundation and was difficult for me to identify at all.

shallow cave – la cueva pequeña

1. entrance - entrada

2. ground (as in "grind") cavity on cave wall - muesca molida por la pared del cueva

3. long groove - muescas largas

 

Site coordinates: 38.415493, -6.442114

inside the yellow circle - dentro el circulo amarillo

 

Description: This little cave is in plain view and requires almost no athletic ability to enter. It is located on the southernmost ridge of the main sierra, on the eastern side. Image 1 shows the entrance and also it’s possible to see the grooves in Images 2 and 3 on the left wall, at about eye-level.

Image 2 shows a circular impression that, in my opinion, has been ground into the cave wall. Image 3 shows another, longer groove that extends upward into the cave’s ceiling. Taken together, the grooves roughly form an “exclamation point” shape ( ! ).

Speculation: I’ve speculated that perhaps the upper grooves could have allowed smoke to pass out of the cave (as there is evidence of smoke staining the cave walls near its deepest part). Also, that pair of vertical grooves could have caused rainwater to drain and drip in a specific place, to ease its collection.

I have no good explanation for the circular groove. Perhaps a basin could have been held there to collect water dripping from the above channels, or perhaps someone was passing time grinding out a near-perfect circle; I’m perplexed.

end scraper – rasqueta III

perfil arriba - profile (top)

perfil debajo - underside profile

punto - point

proximal end - terminacion proximal

Find coordinates (within a 5-meter radius): 38.414913, -6.441550

Form correlation: finds.org.uk end scraper (flint)

Description: This is a flaked piece of quartz/granite. The dorsal-ridge side appears to have four surfaces while the ventral (underside) has clearly been flaked to form three surfaces. Its proximal end is sub-diamond in shape.

Speculation: Judging from the image at the above link address and others I’ve seen, my guess is that this was either hafted vertically to form an end-scraper (for hides) or perpendicularly to form an axe or hatchet. As it’s flaked and ground but not polished, I’d suppose it’s not any more recent than the upper Mesolithic.