User:Alvargut/Santomé's castro

The Natural Archaeological Site of Santomé is a museum-like archaeological site located in the municipality of Ourense, barely 3 km from the city of the same name. In the same archaeological area you can visit remains from the Castrexa and Roman times in an area of ​​high natural value.

Location
The deposit is located next to the city of Ourense, administratively in the province of Ourense, part of the autonomous community of Galicia. It is possible to access the archaeological-natural complex in two ways: on foot, through a hiking route that runs along a possibly medieval path; or by car, for which there are signs from the main roads indicating the route to follow.

Historiography
The site was discovered in 1969, when D. Manuel Blanco Guerra, a town councilor, carried out some exploratory tastings -in an amateur way- between this year and 1974, which allowed to highlight the archaeological importance of the place. Starting in 1983, the Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Ourense began the scientific and systematic excavation of the place, which allowed discovering the chronological-cultural complexity of the site.

Castrexo settlement
The castrexo settlement is located on a mountainous spur, with a dominant position on its contour, and a topography that makes it impregnable. There is a strong cliff over the Loña river that serves as a natural defense from the S. SW. In the most accessible areas, a wall line with a tower and a moat was built. The town takes advantage of both the natural terraces and others artificially built for the installation of the houses. The terraces would give the town a staggered appearance, although connected by the existence of streets. It is, therefore, a typical site of the last stage of the castro culture, whose beginning can be placed in the middle of the 1st century BC, lasting until the middle of the 2nd century AD. c.

Roman High-Imperial settlement
Contemporaneous with the occupation of the castro, an occupation is documented in the N-NE area of ​​the slope of the castro with remains of structures that were much destroyed by later constructions from the late Roman period, but with a looting of materials that is very representative of the Roman world.

Late-roman settlement
A century after being abandoned on the previous Roman remains, a new settlement was built, of which two housing units have been exhumed. With some variants, they reproduce the same scheme, being organized around a central courtyard, like an atrium. The presence in one of them of some stairs that would lead to a floor in height is singular, an infrequent element in buildings of Roman rural habitat.

Nature
The natural and scenic values ​​of the area have been integrated and enhanced at the site. It can be defined as a Mediterranean oak grove, with the presence of cork oak and holm oak. The presence of the groan stands out, infrequent in Galicia, as well as beautiful specimens of tame pines. A woody shrub is the strawberry tree (in Galician: érbedo) which produces a showy edible fruit and which gives its name to the area of ​​the site due to its abundance.