An archaeological analysis of a battlefield of the Second Punic War: the camps of the battle of Baecula

Abstract

Since 2002, our team at the University of Jaén's Research Institute for Iberian Archaeology has been undertaking an archaeological research project focusing on the analysis of the site of a conflict that can indisputably be dated to the final phase of the Second Punic War. Based on the topography, descriptions in the ancient sources, and archaeological data, we present the hypothesis that the site we have located corresponds to that of the battle of Baecula. In that confrontation in 208 B.C., Scipio the Younger faced Hasdrubal Barca. It was a momentous battle, at least in terms of its subsequent outcome, given that it could be considered the event that triggered Hasdrubal's withdrawal to Italy. Our research project has yielded information which we believe to be paradigmatic in two respects. First, we have been able to ascertain the size of the area over which an armed confrontation of this type would have taken place, thanks to the identification of determining elements such as the different camps set up for the battle and their sizes. It covers the area where the armies clashed, where they were positioned and deployed, their movements on the battlefield, and so forth. Second, thanks to intensive sampling, we have recovered a corpus of finds that may be used in the future as a reference for the allocation of other sites to the period of the Second Punic War.