Roman Necropolis of Valhondo

In 1978 an interesting necropolis was discovered, the torrential water of that month of April uncovered some tegulas and, going a little deeper, abundant ceramic remains were found. The site was located in the Valhondo pasture, in Berzocana.

From the remains found we can place the necropolis around the third and fourth centuries AD. There is a settlement a little above that was very partially excavated.

The cemetery includes numerous tombs of different types, although it is possible to distinguish between burial and cremation. Some may have much older dates.

Their funerary offerings have been recovered, consisting of plates, vessels, necklaces, glass vessels and remains of weapons. Most of the extracted material is exhibited in the geopark’s archaeological interpretation center.

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The two types of burials that we found correspond to the two cultures that still coexist at this time. The ancient Celts who still cremate their deceased and the new flood rytas that the Romans bring to the peninsula and generalize everywhere. Almost all Celtic tombs are grouped together in one part of the cemetery and have a cular marking around them.

The tombs of the Romans are very well distinguished because they have the rectangular shape to which we are accustomed, the hole was marked with tegulas or Roman tiles in the richest tombs in others it was with stones and some had no more than the hole. In some tombs small remains of bones have been found, in these soils are usually appear the same as the clothes that the deceased will wear. iron faces in the form of buckles have been found in some of them. Vessels and objects with offerings for the afterlife were placed next to the remains of the deceased.

However, in the tomb of a Celt, of the Vettones tribe, what we find is a hole that has a circular shape as well as the mark that will be placed around the remains. In a large urn he introduced the ashes of the cremation next to this main urn we find other objects vessels plates that we see that are burned because they were incinerated with the deceased during the rite.

A small part of the nearby settlement, also Roman, was also excavated and yielded numerous important remains. These include a lead ingot with its weight written in Roman pounds and an inscription in Celtiberian language, and a head of a pronghorn.

the relationship of the necropolis and the settlement with mining activity is unquestionable given the remains found and the proximity of mines in the vicinity.

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