The ruins of this place were to be known after the great flood of the Guadiana, in the year 1876. In March of the following year the archaeologist Estacio da Veiga held the first excavation at the site and be concluded before a Roman villa.

The continuity of research, from the 90 of the next century, revealed that the ruins of Montinho das Laranjeiras include three distinct areas - the pars fructuaria in Roman times, the ecclesiavisigótica and buyut, Islamic. The site had, as such, a wide occupation since the first century BC to the century XI / XII AD

The first construction dates from the first century BC and its location provided the establishment of trade with merchants who furrowed the river to Mértola.

In the late sixth century, principles of the seventh century, when the ravenaico-Byzantine rule in the south of the peninsula, was built an ecclesia of cruciform plan that mimicked the mausoleum of Gala Placidia.

As for Islamic home (buyut), have belonged to families and Arabized from the pottery found at the level of neglect, it follows that the last occupation phase took place in the Almohad period (centuries XII - XIII). Due to its unusually large size, there is the assumption here may have been running an inn (funduq) to accommodate traders who traveled the Guadiana.