Beautiful Holm Oak

Description

The lower head of Encina Hermosa is an archaeological settlement known from the ascentral times. It is located in the municipality of Castillo de Locubín. In a straight line of about 7 km. of the population of Alcaudete, northwestern, and 5.5 km. of Castillo de Locubín, in a southeast sense. From the city of Jaén, you can access the N-432 road to the village of Ventes del Carrizal, and from here, following the way of the Bath Cortijo to the hill.

It is an elongated plateau in the north-south-west sense that presents in all directions abrupt slopes. It has dimensions of 500 meters on its longest axis, about 270 meters on the narrowest side and an area of about 10 hectares.

Archaeologists especially highlight their landscape values with an indigenous vegetation of oak and other species of the Mediterranean mountain.

The site has been the subject of some limited archaeological interventions and the general lines of a Master Plan to address the comprehensive treatment of the site from research and protection to dissemination and value, even though only progress was made in this regard.

The realization in Cabeza Baja of an emergency excavation in 1986, motivated by the increase and extension of the archaeological expolio, offered a series of key archaeological data to define the entity of the site. The data obtained in the excavation indicate that the oppidum of Cabeza Baja de Encina Hermosa is founded between the end of the third century BC and the mid-second century and develops a population that must follow the typical Iberian urbanism of the Alto Guadalquivir.

The first continued occupation of Cabeza Baja (early S.II and final of the S.III BC) was probably by contingents of tubular origin arrived from Obulco, although no other nuclei such as Iponoba, Tucci or even the Iberian nuclei of Alcalá la Real should be excluded. The excavations pointed to the existence of various structures; the existence of an Iberian wall around the plateau was demonstrated. The thickness of the wall can be estimated at 3 meters.

The finding of a level of fire was identified as a possible cause of the abandonment of these units.