The Pre-Romanesque Church of the Camesa-Rebolledo archaeological site (Valdeolea, Cantabria)

Abstract

Camesa-Rebolledo archaelogical site (Valdeolea, Cantabria) houses the ruins of one of the most ancient churches of Cantabria. Even the though the archaeological activities in the site started in 1981, this small rural church was not detected until 1983 and the morphology of the temple was not completely unearthed until the 2002 and 2003 seasons. The main objective of this paper is to show the inaccuracy of the available information about its chronology and to offer our own judgment about this problem. Since its discovery, it has been described as pre-Romanesque church without a high degree of precision. To date, the main arguments used have been the discovery of several fragments of pre-Romanesque capital, the probable use of an ancient building unit and the radiocarbon dating from the surrounding necropolis. This information need to be refined trough the analysis of historical context and the exam of other churches from the contiguous region of the Upper Ebro Valley. These examples can help us to understand the Christianization process in the northern Iberian Peninsula rural landscape between 6th and 7th centuries. Our overall analysis of these arguments dates the construction of the temple in the final moments of the Visigothic Kingdom, as the most likely scenario.