Excavaciones arqueológicas en el exterior de los conjuntos rupestres de Las Gobas (Laño, Burgos)

Abstract

The archaeological intervention conducted at Las Gobas (Lano, County of Trevino, Spain) is part of a line of research led by the Building Archaeology Research Group (UPV-EHU) aimed at studying the configuration of the rural habitat in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The results achieved have allowed the documentation of a rich stratigraphic sequence that starts between the seventh and eigth centuries A.D. and preserves historical information of the first order. Broadly speaking, we can say that the seventh century A.D. saw the first cave spaces being opened up, later followed by some independent buildings set on a slope near the earlier settlements. Towards the ninth century, the space was subject to a profound reorganisation, during which the cave complex was abandoned as a dwelling place and recovered as a burial area. This funerary space seems to have remained active until the eleventh century, but archaeological investigation has not detected any other activity until the sixteenth century, when the site was reoccupied, this time for agricultural use, in a widespread process involving bringing the valley sides under the plough.