El yacimiento de Santa Comba (Covas, Ferrol): investigaciones arqueológicas en un enclave de la ruta marítima atlántica

This article provides a summary of the research carried out in recent years at the archaeological site of Santa Comba (Covas, Ferrol, NW Iberian Peninsula). Located on three small islands that originally made up a peninsula, the main occupation phase belongs to a hillfort that can be dated to between the 3rd century BC and the beginning of the Roman period. There is a nearby open-pit gold mine, probably Roman, and it is likely that the occupants of the hillfort, together with those of other nearby sites, worked in there. After the abandonment of the hillfort, the site shows a hiatus in its occupation until the founding of a Christian church with a cemetery; the oldest written source that can be linked to the church dates it to the year 868.Two brief excavation campaigns were carried out at the site in 2001 and 2006. Our archaeological investigation, begun in 2010, has included geophysical surveys, a geomorphological study of the site and its immediate surroundings, new topography of the main island using GPS, and the representation of the site and the gold mine using LiDAR data.The combination of these techniques has provided us with a better understanding of the characteristics of the site and has been the basis for building a new summation of it. The hillfort is located to the north of the port of Brigantium and the Artabre Gulf, at the beginning of a steep stretch of coastline with few places for ships to shelter. Although this area is an unavoidable crossing point en route to the northernmost areas of the Atlantic, there are still major gaps in our knowledge of its settlement patterns during protohistoric and Roman times. This paper contributes to remedying this situation.