Room 3: Rome to Convent of La Peñuela

It seems that around the 2nd century and throughout the Lower Roman Empire, mining activity must have reduced or ceased, leading to the abandonment and ruin of the settlement and metallurgical foundry established under La Carolina. The Visigothic world did not maintain that settlement and there is little evidence of stable occupation. It is very likely that this area was depopulated, with a certain population remaining dispersed in farmhouses, country houses and ventas. The Middle Ages were thus entered, with little information until the internal struggles that were to break up the Caliphate of Córdoba into the kingdoms of Taifas from 1031 onwards, together with the increased pressure from the Christian kingdoms in their quest for reconquest, forced the construction and construction of a line of defensive fortresses along the Sierra Morena.