The collaboration between San Miguel Brewers and the Ambrona Valley Research Project began in 2003. Since then, we have made a lot of things together: the documentary La Cerveza mas Antigua de Europa (The oldest Beer in Europe), sponsoring of several excavation seasons, collaboration in scientific meetings (amongst them is remarkable the international one held at Barcelona in October 2004 about the Study of Beer during the Prehistory and the Antiquity), sponsoring the Exhibition Bell Beakers in the Spanish Meseta at Aranda de Duero (Burgos), and so on.

As a result of this fruitful collaboration in the beginning of 2006 a book about Beer in the Spanish Prehistory is going to be published, where all the process of elaboration, consume and mening of Beer in the Copper Age Iberian societies will be explained.

Following its research trajectory the Ambrona Valley team will publish during 2006 the scientific monograph of the two Early Neolithic habitats of La Lámpara and La Revilla. Both are really important sites for the study of the Inner Iberia neolithisation process, since they have surprisingly early radiocarbon dates suggesting that the introduction of agriculture and livestock raising took place in the Meseta at a much earlier date that it has been previously thought.

During 2005 September our second season in the Zafrín site took place (Congreso Island, Chafarinas Islands, Northern Africa, Spain). The Ambrona Valley Research Team, under the direction of Dr. Manuel A. Rojo, collaborates with the Mediterranean Culture Institute in Melilla in this Research Project since 2004.

This archipelago has three small islands (Isabel II, Congreso and Rey) and is located to the east of the Autonomous City of Melilla (Spain), in front of the cabo de Aguas, near the Algeria-Morocco frontier. The Geological analyses concluded that during the Prehistory these islands were part of the African continent (as a bigger cape than the current Cabo de Aguas).

The archaeological works have been centred on the Zafrin site, which is located to the south of the Congreso Island. In that place several archaeological seasons have been carried out discovering very interesting archaeological remains of an Early Neolithic settlement. It was especially important the discovery during the 2004 season of a rock-cut hut delimited by a small stone wall where the entrance was located. It had inside a central hearth as well as different food processing areas (limpet and mussel shells, fish, domestic cattle, grinding, etc.). Several rock-cut postholes foundations were found in which the vegetal roofing was sustained.

Amongst the archaeological materials discovered are plain and cardial decorated pottery, flint implements (geometric microliths, perforators, scrapers), as well as diverse adornment objects like shell and stone pendants, a polished stone axe (which was found inside a hole excavated in the rock that could have functioned as a sort of larder), and many grinding stones (several of them recovered in situ inside the hut, many reused as the stone forming the central hearth).

During the excavation different samples for the palaeobotanical and the radiocarbon studies were collected. After those important discoveries during the 2004 season, on the next one (September 2005) the aim was to delimit the site extension. Different domestic structures were located (part of a new hut amongst them) but, unfortunately, they all were badly preserved due to the intense erosive processes provoked by the strong slope of the place.

Together with the excavations carried out in the Zafrín site another set of activities had been developed in this 2005 season. In the Congreso island itself different historical age (probably XIX century) stone building ruins and bench lands were topographied with a total station and GPS.

In the El Rey Island intensive surveys were carried out locating numerous lithic materials. With this evidence it will be possible to define new areas to be excavated in the future.

Given the interest of this research in the Chafarinas Islands and the importance and spectacular materials and structures found, an exhibition will be organized in the Melilla city where the works made during the last years in the site will be shown, thanks to the collaboration of many different institutions from the Autonomous City.

During 2002 July and August months the Ambrona Valley Research Team made an archaeological survey in the Soria area of the Jalón River Basin. Two were the reason for this project to be carried out. First, one of the research lines of the Integral Actuation Plan in the Ambrona Valley, dedicated to seek habitation and burial places belonging to the neolithisation process (Peña de la Abuela, La Lámpara, La Revilla, La Sima, Abrigo de La Dehesa / Carlos Álvarez, La Tarayuela). But also because the orographic, hydrographic, habitation and environmental features of this part of the Jalón River Basin are quite adequate for the establishment and development of Mesolithic/Early Neolithic groups.

From the whole set of rock shelters located three were chosen for the 2005 season archaeological sondages, two of them in Somaén (Los Grajos and Abrigo nº 1 del río Jalón) and one in Benamira (La Tosuguera), near the provincial border with Guadalajara. The results of these sondages have been varied, since the Covacho de los Grajos did not offered any prehistoric material or structure, while in the La Tosuguera rock shelter several lithic industry pieces that could be dated to the Mesolithic/Early Neolithic and materials from a brief Copper Age occupation were found, unfortunately in an altered sedimentary context. Finally in the Abrigo nº 1 del río Jalón a single Early Bronze Age prehistoric occupation level with Beaker pottery was found.

During the 2004 August month the last archaeological survey season was a carried out in the Ambrona Southern Paramo highlands, as part of the Ambrona Valley Integral Actuation Plan, directed by Dr Manuel A. Rojo Guerra.
The aim of these surveys was reviewing the Ambrona Valley site inventory made on 1998 and the location of new ones in this area. The technical director of this fieldwork was Guillermo Morán Dauchez, member of the Ambrona Valley research team, which designed and applied an innovative survey methodology (SIRTEyS) based on the location with GPS of every single potsherd or flint piece found, and this information storage on a PDA. This work is part of this research team member Ph.D. about the evolution of the settlement patterns and the landscape from the Early Neolithic to the Full Bronce Age in the Ambrona Valley.

Together with the scientific goals these works, as the rest of the ones carried out in the Ambrona Valley, also pretend to protect and preserve the rich archaeological heritage of this region. Thus, all the sites were precisely located to be protected by the public institutions. Unfortunately, these efforts could not avoid the destruction of several sites by recent reforestation works developed in the Paramo highlands.

The International Association Achaeologie et Gobeletes is devoted to the study of the Bell Beaker phenomenon in Europe, and periodically organizes meetings about this matter where researchers across Europe gather together, discuss and exchange information and opinions. They are intended for the scientific community to understand the beaker problem in the countries where they are celebrated.

This Meeting was held in Spain between May 5th and 8th 2005. Different cultural excursions and scientific activities were also organized for the participants. In Sedano (Burgos) several megalithic monuments from the important megalithic nucleus located in this area were visited, and also the congresists visited the famous Sierra de Atapuerca sites, and also the Beaker Exhibition we organized at Aranda de Duero (Burgos), where the most spectacular Beaker materials of the Spanish Meseta were collected from different museums across Inner Iberia. Finally the participants at the Beaker Meeting visited the Ambrona Valley main sites.

The different lectures and communications presented by all these researchers of different countries in Europe were collected in a book (Spanish and English written) recently published by the Valladolid University and the Junta de Castilla y León.

In the framework of the yet mentioned International Beaker Meeting in Castilla y León the Ambrona Valley Research Team designed and organized an Exhibition entitled Bell Beakers in the Meseta: symbols of power in the Prehistory promoted by the Aranda de Duero council at the Exhibition hall of the Culture House in Aranda de Duero (Burgos). In this exhibition Beaker materials from the main Meseta sites were shown, many of them that had never been exhibited together.

Together with the prescriptive exhibition panels a model of a Beaker individual interment (that of Fuente Olmedo in Valladolid which provided some of the most spectacular grave offerings across Copper Age Western Europe) was shown. It was also designed and published a didactic guide for the visitors to the exhibition.

Around the beginning of 2005 the Ambrona Valley Research Team has published the book A Challenge to Eternity. Monumental Tombs in the Ambrona Valley, which includes the scientific study of three Neolithic monumental tombs that were excavated in the framework of the Integral Actuation Plan in the Ambrona Valley: La Peña de la Abuela, El Túmulo de la Sima and La Tarayuela.

This is the first scientific monograph published of the results obtained in the Ambrona Valley excavations during the last ten years. You can find there detailed descriptions of these sites, which were used to define a new Neolithic burial rite, the lime-kiln tombs, and to present a unique site in Iberia, and possibly in Western Europe, such as the La Sima Mound, with a spectacular burial sequence. There is also a complete set of multidisciplinary studies (palaeoanthropological, palaeobotanical, radiometric, etc.) which provided very interesting data.

To sum up, the three monumental tombs in this scientific monograph show us the burial sequence and social evolution of the Ambrona Valley inhabitants from the Middle Neolithic (c. 4000 cal BC) until the Copper Age, with the Beaker reusing of these Neolithic monuments (c. 2400 cal BC).

After more than ten years directing the Ambrona Valley Integral Actuation Plan, and after publishing many scientific books and papers, Manuel A. Rojo has decided to offer the results of his investigation in the Ambrona Valley in a different way, writing a tale based on the rich archaeological evidences discovered by his team in the course of this last years researches.

The tale narrates the life and adventures of a small child and the group he belongs to 6000 years ago in the Ambrona Valley, and the history is wonderfully illustrated by an excellent friend and artist, Luis Pascual Repiso (Aratikos-Arqueólogos, S.L.).

The book also has a didactic unit and a terms glossary to help children and adults getting into Oci’s World.

During the summer of 2003 it was filmed in the Ambrona Valley the documentary entitled The Oldest Beer in Europe, in which all the research team members took part.
The documentary was filmed with a double purpose, on the one hand to illustrate life in the Prehistory, using the evidence obtained in our research project. On the other hand, we pretended to present to the society the discovery of Beer made, through analysis, in a set of Bell Beakers from the La Sima Mound and La Peña de la Abuela, and from that, to show the process of elaboration of this beverage during the Copper Age, its social meaning and its use in different contexts: burial rituals, communal feasts, etc.

This documentary has been sponsored by San Miguel Brewers, which has been strongly supporting the Ambrona Valley Research Project during the last years.

The year of 2004 was the culmination of a decade of works and research, during which we have realized the extraordinary richness of the Ambrona Valley Cultural and Natural Heritage, with the development of the Integral Actuation Plan. This plan has as its main goal the tourist and cultural dynamization and the sustainable development of the area. On January 23rd 2004 this Guide of the Environmental and Cultural Resources of the Ambrona Valley was presented to the public at the Soria Numantino Museum. This guide, finely illustrated by Luis Pascual Repiso, describes in a simple and comprehensible the natural (faunal, flora and landscape) and cultural (archaeological sites from the Prehistory to Modern Age) resources, and offers different routes to visit this Soria province corner. It is a trip you cannot miss.