Castro Ventosa y la Cabeza de Navasangiluna revisión de sus secuencias de ocupación y del fenómeno de los asentamientos fortificados medievales

Abstract

In this paper we present a review of a set of pottery contexts —including some closed contexts— from the sites of Castro Ventosa (Cacabelos-Villafranca del Bierzo, León) and La Cabeza de Navasangil (Navasangil, Ávila), both of them considered significant examples of early medieval hill-fort occupations. This review follows the ascertainment of some biased ideas concerning these sites which have established their interpretation as a historical phenomenon. Among these, the inadequate dating of some of the contexts could be considered one of the most problematic, since it would insert the occupation of these sites in a wrong historical context. Pottery analysis, based on the new approaches and insights in its use as a dating method, leads to the conclusion that the dating of these two contexts should be restricted to a chronological span between the beginning of the 5th and the mid 6th centuries. This dating is coherent with the analyses carried out in other similar sites, and implies important changes in the historical, social and political interpretation of hill-fort occupations in the northern region of the Iberian Peninsula.