38.- Necropolis of the Mount Areo
Mount Areo is a narrow and long relief which spreads from west to east across the council of Carreño and Gijón. It ends in the northeast. at Campa Torres. next to the Cantabric Sea. Its prominent position makes it a leading spatial reference which motivates the settlement between the 4th and 5th millennium of an extensive necropolis. with more than 30 burials. Among the excavated burial mounds. are some of the oldest examples of Cantabria and an important typological variety. The renowned types can be classified as simple typical dolmens (of well-built burial mounds. covered with a stone top and on the inside they hold square chambers. closed with a monolithic covering); dolmens with high entrances and chambers (with an interior height of the specifically sepulchral area. close to two metres); and burial mounds without a precise definition of the chambers but of considerable monumental entity (up to 20 metres of diameter). The offerings that make up the grave goods (from polished axes to numerous layers of silex. arrow heads or certain adornment or sumptuary objects made of jet or crystal rock) express the technical and cultural guidelines of the geopolitical populations. as well as the phenomena that are of interest. such as the selection-import of manufactures. remote ways of trade etc.