Ostras, corrucos y lapas en las fábricas conserveras de Iulia Traducta (ss. II – V d.C.)arqueomalacología en el Parque de las Acacias (Algeciras, Cádiz)

Abstract

This work presents the results of the archaeomalacological study of an archaeological intervention carried out in the Parque de las Acacias of Algeciras (Cádiz province, Spain) during 2015, which allowed exhuming part of one of the salting factories in the industrial area of the Roman city of Iulia Traducta, with different contexts dated between advanced moments of the 2nd and the 5th c. A.D. well dated stratigraphically, and with an extensive ceramic and numismatic record. Among the various taxa of marine bivalves and gastropods, the high presence of “corrucos” (Acanthocardia tuberculata) stands out, a type of large bivalve that has a unique extraction system, characterized by a perforation in one of the leaflets. Oysters (Ostrea edulis) with evidence of artificial breeding and limpets abound, and a possible buccinum on a shell with an intentionally fractured apex (Charonia lampas) has been documented. The main interest of this work lies in checking the evolution of the exploitation of malacological resources in a production area specialized in the maritime economy for a long period, and the confirmation of the use of these marine resources in the manufacture of canned seafood, since they have been documented as discarded remains in depositional strata in these fish-salting plants, adding to the already known findings of the nearby cetariae of San Nicolás st. at Algeciras.