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Federico Wattenberg Center for Vaccean Studies (University of Valladolid)
PINTIA VACCEA

News about Pintia Project


The 2011 Excavations Campaign


Tu 08/2/2011


During the months of June and July it took place the campaign of 2011 excavations at the site of Pintia, in which participated 22 international students, as well as a large group of volunteers and researchers from the Vaccean Studies Center at the University of Valladolid.

Participants. Among the students attending the XXI and XXII International Theoretical and Practical Courses of Archaeology in Pintia, in association with ArchaeoSpain, The UVa Buendia Centre and the Centre for Vaccean Studies, some of them came along from as far away as New Zealand, Australia or Singapore, adding to numerous USA states or Britain.

We thank them all for their participation and contribution to the efforts to develop the Pintia Project. Thank you, Kirandeep Dhaliwal, Jason Morris, Gustavo Rodriguez, Ethan Ortega, Hayley Travis, Audree Espada, Michele Bittner, Andrew Robinson, Megan Golightly, David Haynes, Patricia Mereniuk, Jingyi Zhang, William Doring, Rebecca Sexton, Alaina Sawyer, Audrey Jaksich, Aaron Dalla Vecchia, Alamna Brown, Gabrielle Metcalf, Nikolaus Cox, Victoria Weaver and Kaitlin Daniel.
Recognition that we extend to all the volunteers participating: Juanma, Elvira, Pink, Conchi, Amador, Luis, Paul, and the Cultural Association of Pintia with its president (Marisa) and secretary (Pepe) to the head.

Campaign Results. On June the study first focused on the Las Ruedas necropolis, then moving, on July, to the main activity, the defensive system of the city of Las Quintanas.
The main objective of the intervention on Las Ruedas cementery was to document the contemporary graves of three aristocratic women (toombs 127th, 127b and 128), discovered in 2007, whose location in a 4th century B.C. area came to distort the pattern of occupancy detected, as they should be in a northernmost area corresponding to the low chronology of the late 2nd century BC or earlier.
Six new sectors of 4 x 4 m around these graves were opened. The result is revealing: we found six graves, all -except for the ones only cremated bones– belonging to the fourth century B.C., and an ashespit about four feet long by two feet wide.
We think this to be a bustum or cremation grave (knowing that the cremation of the corpses was usually done one thousand feet away in Los Cenizales area) and we believe, therefore, that it was used to cremate the bodies of the aforementioned three graves, because near this bustum located in the North, there was also a small hole, where there are some offerings seemingly matching chronological pattern.
This is the first time that we can document the cremation of corpses inside the cemetery grounds and we can link this unusual practice to the Pintian elite burials, more specifically, two women and a girl who died at about the same time, 2,100 years ago.

The interventions at Las Quintanas have continued in order to advance in the understanding of the defensive works that protected the city. Specifically, we've been able to expand the excavation area around the tower attached, whose diameter could reach 10 to 14 meters, but unfortunately it goes on into an adjacent property, so we cannot see the union of the tower with the wall in that area.
It was unearthed much of the escarpment of the third pit or closer to the berm (supporting surface of the wall), dug into a layer of white sand that extends under a larger gravel and sand.
Within the fill of this ditch, to reach 3.5 m deep with respect to the berm, it was impossible to continue digging with human means. Adding to the difficulty of lifting sludge, we found water springs that eventually flooded the trench excavated. However, it has already opened an are large enough to start getting a glimpse of the grandeur of this archaeological site.
Excavations of the next campaign will confront the technical means to solve the problems identified in this campaign.








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