Montefrío

The land around Montefrío has been occupied since at least 4500 BC. The earliest confirmed settlement, identified through cave stratigraphy at the site known as Peñas de los Gitanos — about four kilometres from town on the road to Íllora — dates to the Middle Neolithic. The site sits roughly a thousand metres above sea level on a limestone plateau with natural caves, steep escarpments, and karst-like terrain that made it easy to defend.

The open-air settlement of Los Castillejos was established later in the Neolithic period. By the Copper Age it was surrounded by three megalithic burial sites: El Castellón, La Camarilla, and El Rodeo. Excavations by the University of Granada's prehistory department in 1971 and 1974 produced a full stratigraphic sequence running from around 3000 BC through to the Early Bronze Age. The earliest phase shows a pastoral economy — sheep, goats, and cattle — suited to mountain terrain. A later phase shows a shift toward agriculture, evidenced by a rise in wild animal remains consistent with farmers protecting crops rather than herders.

The caves themselves — among them Cueva de las Tontas, Cueva de las Cabras, and Cueva Alta — served as dwellings. Many of the rectangular megalithic tombs are east-facing, with a burial chamber and an offering antechamber, and have yielded flint axes, arrowheads, and worked knives. The settlement continued in use through the Ibero-Roman period and into the Middle Ages.

A second prehistoric site on the Sierra de la Cazuela preserves stone foundations of a small settlement, probably used by hunters, though much of it has been destroyed by later land clearance.

Montefrío today is a municipality of 5,283 people (INE 2025), declared a national historic-artistic site in 1982. In 2015, National Geographic listed it among the ten places in the world with the finest views.