The La Molineta is the biggest and best documented of those studied in Mazarrón Port. Due to this we know that the deceased were sometimes buried in boxes or with shrouds, and depending on the epoch, with coins or with protective animal paws for certain rites following death. Two phases with different rituals which respond to two consecutive times have been documented at the cemetery, which differentiate it in the whole Mazarrón area.
The cemetery occupies a large area in Mazarrón Port urban area, on the high part and side of a hill with cliffs going down to the beach. Today it is bordered by Cartagena, Progreso, Canales and Trafalgar streets, and would include the internal streets of San Juan, Gallo, Santa Teresa, Alcalá Galiano, San Antonio, Hellín and Macetas.
Two different phases of use of the cemetery have been identified, which respond to different rituals, and at the same time, appear to respond to different periods of economic activity and probably to the area’s social and political structure.
The oldest phase has to be placed chronologically between the middle of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th, at the same time as the port’s flourishing economic activity. The cemetery appears to respond to a programme of distribution and order which respects or contemplates inside it a hydraulic complex with an aqueduct, a water deposit and some baths, to establish small structures or chapels with a bell end apse, probably for a cult, and tombs lined up in streets with a structure in which they initially played a very important role as space organizers, and grand family mausoleums of the so-called forma loculi type. The burials of this period were sometimes in boxes, perhaps with stretchers, and with shrouds, without evidence of objects of adornment belonging to the deceased or of other indications of the presence of dressed remains. With specific exceptions, the reuse of tombs was almost normal. The presence of domestic ceramic or glass items is scarce, but not non-existent, and the appearance of coins associated with the bodies is very common. Next to an element such as this of clear pagan roots, since it is related with having to pay the boatman who transported the souls of the dead to Hades, there appear others related with popular religion, such as the presence of animal paws, perhaps for the protection of children, in a ritual related with the “evil eye” and the belief in the daemones, as well as testimonies of Christian beliefs. Everything exposed from this phase speaks to us of a society of clear Roman roots, with an important population in which urban families played an important role, as elements of ideological, social, political and economic articulation, and support to the intentions of restoring the empire by Constantine and his successors, fundamentally in the period which affects us, Valentinian and Teodosio.
The end of this phase happened in a traumatic way. The tombs appear to have been most vandalized. We can relate this intentional destruction with the time of crisis reflected in other Mazarrón Port strategic contexts, which seem to have happened a short time before the middle of the 5th century. From the historical point of view, we believe we can make a connection between this fact with the presence in the area of groups related to the vandals or other bands of eastern Germans. In fact we know the vandals took Cartagena in 425.
Following the rupture of this activity, we do not know if, with an interruption, the cemetery continued. Nevertheless, this second phase presents a proportionally fewer number of tombs, and these with their own construction traits, and with a clearly different ritual from the previous. The characteristics of this phase respond to a cultural horizon already known and studied at other south-eastern archaeological sites, although in general in small cemeteries of a rural character. Along with these tombs, there are trenches of ashes with bones and pottery, and with an important presence of large dishes for making bread, tables of offerings and possible fireplaces. The remains are dressed and there are objects of adornment of a characteristic type; the pottery domestic elements and the coins associated with the deceased disappear. Although there are cases of reusing the tombs, they are mostly individuals and appear unaltered.
To establish the final moment of the cemetery we have the find of a hidden stash of coins in a tomb, and within which we find some vandal minted coins from North Africa. It is tempting to connect the end of the cemetery and the hiding of the coins with a process of Byzantine settlement in the area. In any case, in our cemetery the cultural horizon which at the beginning of the 7th century is documented in other areas of the south-east is absent, and where together with the objects of personal adornment, which continue speaking to us of dressed remains, reappear with greater frequency ceramic pots as funeral objects, now characteristic elements of the plateau inhabitants’ cemeteries and of Visigoth influence.