Punta de Los Gavilanes (sparrowhawk Point)

This reduced coastal rise that separates Bahía from La Pava beaches was largely occupied (from Prehistorical times to Roman times), and its complex succession needs an exhaustive archaeological digging, led today by the Prehistoric Unit of the University of Murcia inside a wider research project that includes the ancient settlement of the coast of Mazarrón.

The initial occupation goes back to the first centuries of the 2nd millennium BC, with an earlier economic diversification of the surrounding Argaric groups dedicated to the exploitation of the marine environment and the coastal navigation.

Later on, in the 1st millennium BC into the late VIII/early VII BC centuries, the aforementioned hill is used as a small trading hub by the western Phoenicians, and inhabited with the same use late in the VI BC century. But maybe one of the most relevant aspects of the research at the digging is the identification of a factory destined to obtain silver and active during IV and III BC centuries.

It is the only factory in the Western Mediterranean sea with a metal manufacturing technique close to the ones used in the attic mines of Laurion. From this building, several departments allow the visitor to know the process, that is, the cupellation of metallic lead from the foundries surrounding mining strips in Mazarrón.

After this factory was abandoned (related to the siege of Qart Hadast by Rome in 209 BC), the place is occupied again in late II century or early I BC with a similar but smaller economic structure, linked to the mining exploitation in Mazarrón under Roman administration.

The activity in the factory remains until the change of era, and finally abandoned permanently. Today is acceptably preserved, and we hope to keep it that way for future references.