At the beginning of 2021, our proposal 'GEOIbers' was selected for funding by the Conselleria de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital (Generalitat Valenciana, Spain). We decided to put this project together after the promising results we obtained from a small magnetometer survey we carried out at the site of the Iberian oppidum of Kelin (Caudete de las Fuentes, Valencia) in 2013.
GEOIbers focused on the investigation of three types of Iberian sites (settlements, metal-production and necropolises) using geophysical methods (i.e. magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar) and photogrammetry. The objective was to detect remains of buried structures related to semi-excavated oppida to complete urban layouts, locate unknown smelting ovens related to craft centers, and characterise hidden Iberian funerary landscapes. We carried out fieldwork in November/December 2021 and in July 2023 we presented our first results in the World Archaeological Congress in Prague.
This was a research collaboration between the University of Valencia (Consuelo Mata-Parreño-Project Manager, Agustín Díez Castillo, David Quixal), the University of Castilla La Mancha (Lucía Soria), and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology-NTNU, University Museum (Carmen Cuenca-García).