Knowing the Site

CRONOLIGY

The Cerro de San Vicente, where the origin of the city of Salamanca is located, constitutes an archaeological site that hosts a wide historical occupation whose main remains correspond to protohistory, medieval and modern times.
It is during the first Iron Age, between the seventh and fifth centuries BC, when a stable settlement is built in this place, following similar guidelines to those of other settlements that were established in the middle valley of the Douro during the same period, although there are indications of an earlier occupation of the Final Bronze period (late second millennium BC).

UBICATION

The location of the village was not accidental and was due to a number of factors favorable to human settlement at that time. Among them stands out its position next to a ford and the wide vega that describes the Tormes River at this point, a good visual mastery of the environment and the economic possibilities of the area that allowed to develop a mixed economy with abundant riverside forests and holm oaks in its proximity. In addition, it was located in the geographical natural corridor that will later be known as Vía de la Plata, a communication route through which different cultural currents traveled throughout history.
Its strategic location, dominating the Tormes valley and the Cerro de las Catedrales itself, has motivated the subsequent occupations of the place, from medieval to contemporary times.

EXTENSION

The town of Cerro de San Vicente extends mainly along the western end of the teso on a flattened plateau that rises about 30 meters above the river, with an area of about 2 hectares. It was surrounded by a rocky escarpment shaped in a natural way by the river courses that ran around it. Its more accessible flank was reinforced by a defensive wall of arched trace that protected the northeast of the hamlet along about 90 meters.

EVOLUTION

The great sedimentary thickness of the preserved archaeological strata, greater than two meters and corresponding to successive phases of habitat, allows us to speak of several centuries of occupation in this enclave, which evolved until the dawn of the second Iron Age. From this moment (4th century BC) most of its inhabitants, given the lack of space in the original site due to the notable demographic increase - despite the fact that the hamlet exceeded the scope delimited by the wall - moved to the neighboring Teso de las Catedrales and built the renowned castro de Salmantica, substrate of the current historical city, leaving the original site converted into the adjacent neighborhood to which the classic texts possibly allude on the occasion of the military expedition of Hannibal for these lands.

THE PROTOHISTORIC POPULATION

ECONOMY

The survival of the people who populated the Cerro de San Vicente during the first Iron Age was based on the agricultural exploitation of its surrounding territory. Of the main economic activities highlighted the cultivation of grasses such as barley and the collection of wild tree fruits, especially acorns, which were stored in the buildings attached to the houses used as barns. Its relevance within the group's economy is attested by the frequent appearance of hand mills and millstones in all the contexts of the village. The agricultural use of the land near the settlement we know involved a remarkable deforestation of pines and oaks, while the fluvial species (olmes, willows and poplars) were maintained for the exploitation of the resources offered by the riverside forests.




They were sheep farmers and the majority find of adult bones speaks of their consumption as meat, regardless of the use of other products such as milk and its derivatives or wool. The abundance of this species could refer us to a transhumant practice, with seasonal movements through the territory in search of fresh pastures through natural livestock routes such as the one that gave rise to the Vía de la Plata, despite lacking reliable evidence in this regard. They also had an important cattle and pig herd and to a lesser extent equine. Bovids were used both for the use of their meat and skins and for their exploitation and use as a traction and load animal, as evidenced by the adulthood of the remains found and the frequent deformations detected in the bones by a continuous load. Dog bones have also been found, sometimes with traces of having been consumed. This livestock work was complemented by the hunting of wild species in the area (deer, rabbits, etc.).


The trade outside the area of the village is not documented, but practices of exchange with the outside are intuited by the presence of certain elements imported in origin (painted ceramics, double spring fibulas, iron objects and in the final phases ceramics around), through the natural corridor later known as Via de la Plata, which were incorporated into the local culture.

The material culture of the inhabitants reflects the different craftsmanship developed, apart from being constituted as a factor of cultural identity. Among them stands out the pottery, whose testimony occupies the most important position of the elements of the domestic trousseau for its abundance. The ceramic is characterized by being made by hand and it distinguishes common storage and kitchen containers that contrast for their coarseness and simplicity with fine crockery, with more careful finishes and a unique decoration made with printing, incision and comb techniques. Within this set stands out for its cultural significance the painted pottery found in the site, with decorative function and ritual character, which undoubtedly manifests the social prestige of its holder, whose colorful geometric motifs help to relate this culture with others related to the first European Iron Age.

For its part, metallurgy is attested by remains of cast crucibles and small bronze objects, such as leznas, fibulas, needles or arrowheads. The use of iron was still very sporadic and the data proving its use are very scarce.

The rest of the economic practices were reduced to a textile craft industry (as evidenced by the appearance of fusayolas and loom weights), and the elaboration of simple utensils of a utilitarian nature with bone materials (spatulas, handles, punches) and stone (mills, weights, harrows, smoothers, percutters) or ornamental objects (necklace beads, pendants).

URBANISMO

Within the village the constructions seem to follow a certain order that allows us to speak of an incipient urbanism. In the exposed area, four complete houses and up to 9 auxiliary domestic structures linked to them have been identified. All of them are distributed in two bands aligned around a transit space or “street”, following an axis in a northwest-southeast direction of about 3 meters wide observed over at least 20 meters in length.

The houses and their associated auxiliary structures (warehouses, pantries, ovens, etc.) are concentrated forming ensembles (household units) that covered the basic and functional needs of the family entities in which the group was organized. Taking into account the concentration and distribution of the hamlet observed in the archaeological excavations carried out at different points of the site, this settlement could reach a population of more than 250 individuals.

ARCHITECTURE

One of the elements that best defines the protohistoric town of Cerro de San Vicente is its mud and adobe architecture, despite being settled in an area rich in stone that has served as a quarry for centuries. The houses are mostly circular, between 4 and 7 meters in diameter, although they coexist with others rectangular, 4.5 to 6 meters long by 2.5 to 4.2 meters wide. Inside they house, as more identifying elements of domestic furniture, a bench attached to the wall that served as a seat and bed and a centered home, slightly highlighted from the pavement, prepared with thin layers of clay superimposed, where the fire that provided light and heat to the house was lit. The lighting of the interior was complemented, according to archaeological findings, with lamps that possibly used animal fat as a source of food. The walls are often decorated with geometrically painted ornamental motifs related to the iconographic repertoire of the peoples of the first European Iron Age.





As manifested in the stratigraphy of the village, with the passage of time the architecture, within its simplicity, is acquiring greater complexity with contributions such as the incorporation of adobes at the base of the interior floors and the construction of vestibules in the area of the threshold

The structures of lower rank, corresponding to silos, granaries or ovens, are also built with adobes, tapial and stones and have average dimensions of 1 to 2 meters in diameter

Altogether, the main constructive material in the architecture of the village is mud (adobes and tapial), complemented with local stone (siliceous sandstone) or collection from the vicinity (slates and boulders).

SOCIETY

The analysis of the data obtained in this site refers us to a basically egalitarian society organized around family groups, given the homogeneity of the architecture and material culture of the town. The remarkable thickness of archaeological sediments generated by the overlap of constructions of the same period proves its stability for several centuries and its success in the exploitation of the surrounding territory.
So far the funeral rites in the villages of this culture are unknown, except for child burials under the floors of the houses, a practice of obvious symbolic and family sense that has been documented in the Cerro de San Vicente with an inhumation belonging to a newborn.

THE CONVENTION

ORIGEN

After an abandonment of almost twelve centuries, the Cerro de San Vicente was occupied again in the Middle Ages, at a very early stage of the repopulation of the city, probably during the reign of Ramiro II, in the 10th century, when the convent of San Vicente emerged, a pioneer among the Salamancan monastic foundations. Although traditional historiography places its origin in Visigothic times, archaeological remains and historical documentation have not corroborated it.

PRIORATO CLUNIACENSE

In 1143 the convent was transferred to the Order of Cluny, as evidenced by King Alfonso VII's letter of donation to Peter the Venerable, abbot of the Burgundian monastery. This annexation consolidated the city as a relevant monastic settlement, given the importance of the order at the time, and favored its repopulation.
Despite the progressive decline of Cluny in the Late Middle Ages, his prior continued to enjoy certain prerogatives in municipal government for being for several centuries the most important institution in the western sector of the city.

BENEDICTINE MONASTERY

In 1504, under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs, the convent was annexed to the Reformed Benedictine Order, based in San Benito el Real de Valladolid. Immediately after, in 1505, it became a university college, which involved the reconstruction and reform of the building to adapt it to the new collegiate needs.
From this moment, the monastery enjoyed a period of splendor that materialized in the realization of great works that would make the convent of St. Vincent one of the great architectural ensembles of the city of Salamanca.

SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION

The reform of the building contemplated all the necessary infrastructure of cells and dependencies to house the novices. Work began in the middle of the sixteenth century in the cloister area, which from 1570 was reformed and expanded. At the same time, the monastic community acquired the adjoining lands to the west called ‘el castro’, which they used as a garden and orchard, where they built a viewpoint and a recreation house.





At the beginning of the 17th century, a new wing was added with the function of a hostelry, called a porter, forming a large rectangular pavilion whose walls were attached to those of the pre-existing building. The construction works of the new church, on the previous medieval temple, began in 1610, but lasted until the first third of the eighteenth century, concluding with the construction of the choir of the church and the sacristy.
The resulting monastic ensemble, of great beauty and architectural and artistic value, was considered one of the monumental jewels of the city.

FUERTE MILITAR

The strategic location of the monastery of San Vicente led to its occupation by the Napoleonic troops, who transformed it into a fort in 1809, during the War of Independence, as well as the convents of San Cayetano and La Merced, located in the neighboring Cerro de las Catedrales.
The new military use provoked its remodeling and the installation in its environment of folded defenses using the material of demolition of the surrounding hamlet, which are known through the military plans of the nineteenth century.
The final development of the Battle of Salamanca, in 1812, in which the Anglo-Hispanic-Portuguese Allied troops defeated the French army, caused its destruction and ruin, becoming a symbol of the destruction suffered by the monumental city that lost in this war one third of its hamlet.

CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

After the end of the War of Independence, the Benedictine monks tried to rebuild what remained of the convent building, until in 1835 they completely abandoned their unsuccessful attempts, to which the policies of confiscation of the governments of this period contributed. This left the ruins of the famous building abandoned and exposed to the unpunished looting of its factory, so that in the last third of the 19th century no remains of artistic interest were preserved.




From this date, the area began to be colonized by the population that created, on the rubble of the monastery and reusing them in large part, a popular neighborhood of small constructions that has lasted until a few years ago and that erased any trace of historical urbanism until the recovery project began in 1997.