Potentially exciting news, sadly only so far in Spanish, but Spanish archaeologists from the University of Jaen claim to have found the site of the Battle of Baecula. The battle, in 208BC, was the first major field battle of Scipio Africanus and saw the Roman general defeat Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal. They believe that the battle was fought at Santo Tomé (Jaén), a strategic location for access to the basin of the Guadalquivir river from Cartago Nova (Cartagena) that Scipio had conquered the previous year.
To date 6,000 objects have been recovered which suggest a battle - spears, arrowheads, sling shots, sandal tacks and tent pegs. Juan Pedro Bellón, at the Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Arqueología Ibérica, compares the discovery to that of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest:
Hasta ahora solo se había excavado así una batalla de la antigüedad, la de Teotoburgo, en Alemania, de romanos contra los germanos, y es muy posterior, del año 9 aC.”, recalca Juan Pedro Bellón, del Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Arqueología Ibérica.
The full story in El Pais. Many thanks to Greg Hunt for the tip.
UPDATE Many thanks indeed to Juan Bellón who has been in touch with a paper on Baecula from the Limes Congress a couple of years ago - from 2006. He has kindly sent over the paper he and his colleagues at the Centro Andaluz de Arqueología Ibérica wrote at the time. Absolutely worth a read Download BaeculaLimesCongress
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