Early medieval tombs

The local trail S.L.-TE-18 is a circular route that starts from Calle San Cristóbal in Mazaleón. Along its 6 kilometres on foot, we can learn about two ancient cultures that inhabited these lands (Iberians and early medieval peoples) and left their mark in the funerary world.

Approximately one and a half kilometres in, after passing the foot of the hermitage and (Iberian) archaeological site of San Cristóbal, we can see 5 burial mounds belonging to the necropolis of the Iberian settlement of San Cristóbal. These are funerary monuments from the earliest phases of the Iberian culture (7th–6th centuries BC) consisting of a cist or stone box made from large slabs in which the urn with the ashes of the deceased was placed along with grave goods. The whole structure was covered with stones and earth.

Continuing along the path and after walking another kilometre and a half, we come to the early medieval necropolis of the 'Clot de la Avena'. It is made up of around twenty tombs carved into the rock, ten of which are open to visitors, spread across two different areas separated by the Vall de la Avena. This necropolis dates from the early Middle Ages, a little-known period in the comarca that has left few traces.

In both cases, these monuments were built to last, with locations chosen for their great visibility, making them markers of the territory.

The traces of the farmers who inhabited these lands during the Hispano-Visigothic period (6th–9th centuries AD) can be traced through their tombs, as they were family groups with an autarchic (self-sufficient) economy based on agricultural activity, living in small settlements that have left almost no trace, always accompanied by their own cemeteries carved into the rock.

In the two sandstone banks flanking the gorge of the Clot, around twenty tombs are distributed across several family clusters, near the confluence of the Matarraña valley and the mouth of the Vall de la Avena, an area that was likely already cultivated during the early Middle Ages and even in Roman times. Of these, only 10 are open to visitors.

According to Julian Ortega, El Clot del Vall de la Avena is a paradigmatic example of the early medieval cemeteries scattered throughout the Ebro Valley region. The sepulchres, carved into the rock, are grouped in small clusters of family tombs on the hilltops from where they mark dominion over the surrounding farmland. In this way, the tombs of their ancestors became a tool for marking land ownership, which would explain the relative cost of cutting into rock compared with digging a pit in the ground.

It seems probable that their presence can be linked to some early medieval settlement connected with ancient irrigation systems, perhaps of Roman origin, following a model of territorial occupation in this period already documented in other areas of the Middle Ebro Valley. Vallespí mentions the existence of an abandoned village in the partida del Clot.

The excavation carried out in these rock-cut tombs resulted in the discovery of at least 2 individuals, along with a small fragment of Hispano-Visigothic grey ware pottery (6th–9th centuries AD). In some tombs of the Ebro Valley dated to the 6th–7th century, fragments of small jars of these reducing ceramics have been found as the sole grave goods.

On the route we can visit 5 burial mounds distributed in one group of 2 and another of 3, separated by about a hundred metres, beneath the Tossal de l´Àguila, forming part of the necropolis of the Iberian settlement of San Cristóbal located barely 900 metres from them, which comprises a total of 20 burial mounds.

The burial mounds are funerary monuments from the earliest phases of the Iberian culture (7th–6th centuries BC) consisting of a circular tower-like structure called a ring in which opens a cist or box made from large stone slabs into which the urn with the ashes of the deceased and grave goods were placed. Both the monumentality of the tomb and the chosen locations, of great visibility, suggest that these tombs were made to endure through time, immortalising the memory of the buried individual. And that not all members of the community were buried in burial mounds. This is the case of the necropolis of the Iberian settlement of San Cristóbal, which is distributed across several elevations above the Matarraña River.

Three of these burial mounds have been consolidated, so that all the elements that make them up can be observed: the cist, which still has its cover slab beside its opening; the ring, made up of several courses of stone; and the fill of earth and stones between the circular wall of the ring and the cist. The tower-like or drum-like appearance these monuments would have had can clearly be seen.