Parts of an archaeologically significant ancient town have reportedly been destroyed due to the construction of an irrigation ditch.
The ditch, which measures almost 800 feet in length, was excavated last week without the appropriate licenses on agricultural land near the village of Padilla del Duero in the province of Valladolid, northern Spain, Spanish news agency EFE reported.
The ditch cuts through an important part of the archaeological site of Pintia, an ancient settlement that dates back to around 2,400 years ago, before the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The founders of Pintia were the Vaccaei, a pre-Roman Celtic people who inhabited this region of northern Spain and the surrounding areas. Pintia eventually came under the control of the Romans, and the site was also subsequently occupied by the Visigoths—an ancient Germanic people. All these civilizations left traces of their occupation at Pintia. The settlement was finally abandoned in the early medieval period, perhaps due to the invasion of Arab armies.
To date, numerous structures and tens of thousands of artifacts have been uncovered at the site, which was classified as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) in Spain in 1993.
Among the remains destroyed by the newly excavated irrigation ditch at Pintia are homes, walls, roads and ceramic household terms, EFE reported.
According to the Federico Wattenberg Center for Vaccean Studies (CEVFW) at the University of Valladolid, which has been studying the site for decades, the ditch has caused significant "destruction" at the Pintia Archaeological Zone.
The ditch, excavated by farmers on their land, measures around one-and-half feet wide and four-and-half feet deep—equating to around 42,000 cubic feet of excavated earth. This volume of excavated material exceeds that removed by archaeologists at the site over years of research, the CEVFW said.
The remains within the line of the ditch have been "completely destroyed," archaeologist and CEVFW director Carlos Sanz told EFE. Sanz went to inspect the site last Friday, as he usually does during the rainy season, only to find two individuals working together to excavate the ditch.
The site lies on agricultural land, which the local farmers are allowed to cultivate. However, regulations covering the Pintia Archaeological Zone state that farmers cannot dig more than 12 inches into the ground to protect the archaeological remains.
Sanz said the destruction, which has affected the "oldest and richest" part of the site, will be "impossible" to recover. The archaeologist told Spanish news outlet El País that this area was the most densely populated part of the settlement and was possibly its site of origin.
"This is a site of great magnitude. It represents [one of] the first cities in the territory," Sanz told Newsweek. "In a single day with two excavating machines, the equivalent of 10-12 years of work with archaeological methodology has been destroyed."
"They have fundamentally affected the Visigothic, Roman, and most recent Vaccean [archaeological] levels."
Spain's Civil Guard, one of the country's law enforcement agencies, has opened an investigation and taken statements from those allegedly responsible.
This Monday, Gonzalo Santoja, the Minister of Culture for the Regional Government of Castile and León—the autonomous community in which Valladolid province lies—described the event as "devastating."
"The entire world of archeology and all the people of Castile-León know that this is not admissible," he said.
He said all BICs have the same level of protection and that these sites deserve the same respect as churches or cathedrals: "They are sacred, and it is inadmissible to attack them."
In comments provided to El País, the landowner, who has not been identified, denied having destroyed any part of the site: "That's a lie. I have not destroyed anything, and that must be proven. If the drivers had found something, they would have stopped," they said.
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Update 1/24/24, 10:40 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Carlos Sanz.
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