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In 1985, as a result of several surveys conducted by the Autonomous University of Madrid, one of the authors of this contribution identified an archaeological site at El Castrejón de Capote (Extremadura, SW Spain). Here, an important funerary slab, with a Tartessian inscription dated to the 6th century BC, was found. Archaeologists observed a series of buried structures, first interpreted as burial mounds but which, after a series of excavations between 1987 and 1996, were revealed to be the bastions and ramparts of a Late Iron Age settlement. As a result, the competent authorities bought the site and prepared it for visitors, but did not organise a proper programme of systematic excavations. Since then, the settlement has not been further dug.
Although between 1988 and 2003, archaeologists partially published the site, more than thirty houses and two hundred metres of walls, ditches, and defensive elements remain unpublished, buried again in the preliminary excavation reports. A single isolated exploration in 2007 revealed that Capote hillfort occupied a central place in the geographical structure of the region and that this place is well hidden in the landscape. Would this central position justify its location despite its scant natural defences, limited to the steep slopes of a shallow ravine? If not, how can the enormous defensive structures be explained? As this question could not be previously answered, our aim is to try to answer it by unearthing the grey literature produced as well as the excavation reports. From an updated theoretical and methodological perspective, we believe that applying new technologies to the large areas of the site excavated and to be excavated (GIS analysis coordinated with LiDAR data, analyses of raw materials and photogrammetric reconstructions) could finally reveal the hitherto incomprehensible function of a fortress located in a site of impossible defence.

EAA 2022: Abstract

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