Pepe el Ferreiro

José María Naveiras Escanlar, commonly known as Pepe el Ferreiro was born on March 31, 1942 in Grandas de Salime, Asturias. He worked as blacksmith in the forge of his father and in other activities related to metallurgy.

Together with two friends he discovered the first dwelling of the Castro (village), called Chao Samartín, in 1977.

Because of the friendship he had with the owner of the estate, Don Manuel Barcia Monteserín, he was allowed to excavate this buried building, a work he accomplished together with José Manuel Villamea, and together they managed to bring to light an important collection of ceramic fragments. He took the archaeologist D. Miguel Ángel de Blas Cortina of the University of Oviedo to see the Castro, who subsequently studied the excavation site.

In the year 1983, José Naveiras Escanlar founded the Ethnographic Museum of Grandas de Salime. He investigated into anthropological subjects to develop the museum project in the best possible way.

In October 1984, at the antique ruins of Melgar de Tera that were turned into an improvised mausoleum, he excavated a glass made of fine materials, dated to the first half of the first Century, 10–20 B.C.

In April 1986, on his own initiative he presented some samples coming from Chao Samartín to Mr. Fernán Alonso, Q.E.D. of the Carbon-14 Department of the Institute for Physics and Chemistry of Rocasolano (The High Council for Scientific Investigations) in Madrid. They did an analysis and dated the castro at the second half of the first century A.D. 

Personally, I think Pepe makes great advertising for beret-wearing.