Salobreña

Sister cities

• Tolfa
• Péronne

History

At the close of the Last Glacial Maximum, the Motril-Salobreña plain on which Salobreña now stands was not yet land: rather it was a large bay studded with a number of dolomite crags which were islands, most prominently the formation now known as Monte Hacho (73m) and the headland on which Salobreña now stands (110m). The Guadalfeo river drained into the bay, running down the Tajo de los Vados gorge which separates the Sierra de Escalate to the north-east of Salobreña from the Sierra de Chaparral to the west. The river gradually filled the bay with silt comprising post-orogenic, miocenic, and quaternary material, producing a fertile alluvial plain, on which agriculture could begin by the Bronze Age. At this time, the outcrop on which the old town of Salobreña now stands had become a peninsula. Meanwhile, the rocky outcrop of the Peñon, which now juts from La Guardia beach into the sea, remained an island into the seventeenth century. A map of 1722 is the first evidence that the beach had reached it, making it a peninsula. Archaeological finds show human habitation around Salobreña at the rocky promontory known as the Peñon beginning in the Neolithic period, when the Peñon was still an island, with strata perhaps beginning as early as the palaeolithic period and continuing into the Bronze Age at the Cueva del Capitán (Captain's Cave) in the nearby hamlet of Lobres. Evidence of Bronze Age settlement from around 1500 BCE has also been found on the Salobreña headland and, slightly further inland again, Monte Hacho. Such settlements would have been characteristic of the settlement of easily defensible rocky headlands in the region at the time. Salobreña is thought to have experienced contact with the Phoenicians around the eighth century BCE and then Greek and Punic…

Most-observed species

• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,749
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,597
• Yellow-legged Gull

  Larus michahellis J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  2,540
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  2,279
• European Serin

  Serinus serinus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,238
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,054
• European Goldfinch

  Carduelis carduelis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,032
• Sardinian Warbler

  Curruca melanocephala (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  1,914