The Archaeology of Peasantry in Roman Spain

Jesús Bermejo Tirado, Ignasi Grau Mira, Jesús Bermejo Tirado, Ignasi Grau Mira

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9783110757200
• eBook ISBN: 9783110757446
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Geschichte der römischen Antike

This volume aims to present an updated portrait of the Roman countryside in Roman Spain by the comparison of different theoretical orientations and methodological strategies including the discussion of textual and iconographic sources and the analysis of the faunal remains. The archaeology of rural areas of the Roman world has traditionally been focused on the study of villae, both as an architectural model of Roman otium and as the central core of an economic system based on the extensive agricultural exploitation of latifundia. The assimilation of most rural settlements in provincial areas of the Roman Empire with the villa model implies the acceptance of specific ideas, such as the generalization of the slave mode of production, the rupture of the productive capacity of Late Iron Age communities, or the reduction in importance of free peasant labor in the Roman economy of most rural areas. However, in recent decades, as a consequence of the generalized extension of preventive or emergency archaeology and survey projects in most areas of the ancient territories of the Roman Empire, this traditional conception of the Roman countryside articulated around monumental villae is undergoing a thorough revision. New research projects are changing our current perception of the countryside of most parts of the Roman provincial world by assessing the importance of different types of rural settlements. In the last years, we have witnessed the publication of archaeological reports on the excavation of thousands of small rural sites, farms, farmsteads, enclosures, rural agglomerations of diverse nature, etc. One of the main consequences of all this research activity is a vigorous discussion of the paradigm of the slave mode of production as the basis of Roman rural economies in many provincial areas. A similar change in the paradigm is taking place, with some delay, in the archaeology of Roman Spain. After decades of preventive/emergency interventions there is a considerable quantity of unpublished data on this kind of rural settlements. However, unlike the cases of Roman Britain or Gallia Comata, no synthesis or national projects are undertaking the task of systematizing all these data. With the intention of addressing this current situation the present volume discusses the results and methodological strategies of different projects studying peasant settlements in several regions of Roman Spain.

Part I: From Traditional to New Approaches: Methodological Insights

Early Imperial Roman Peasant Communities in Central Spain: Agrarian Structure, Standards of Living, and Inequality in the North of Roman Carpetania

Jesús Bermejo Tirado

Instituto de Cultura y Tecnología / Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Abstract

Previous research on the rural world in the center of Roman Spain has been marked by the study of a series of well-known monumental villae such as Valdetorres del Jarama (Madrid, Spain) or Carranque (Toledo, Spain). The exclusive focus of scholarship to date on this kind of site reveals an implicit acceptance of the slave mode of production as the dominant model for the articulation of social and economic relationships in the region. However, in the last few decades, the development of preventive archaeology has led to the discovery of a whole series of different Roman rural sites. Even though many archaeologists have tended to interpret all these sites as part of a supposedly predominant pattern of the Catonian villa, a comparative review of these recently discovered rural sites can be used to propose alternative models for the articulation of social and economic structures in the rural areas of central Roman Spain. The analysis of the remains of residential buildings, modes of production, and consumption trends recorded in the archaeological record of these recently excavated sites reveals traces of social and economic structures that, far from belonging to the elite stereotype of the villa system, can be identified as typical of traditional peasant communities.

Keywords: Early Imperial Period, Central Spain, Household Archaeology, Peasantry, Preventive Archaeology

1 Introduction

In complete contrast to the situation today, during the Roman period the north of ancient Carpetania (which more or less covers the current metropolitan area of Madrid) was a largely rural region¹. Despite this eminently rustic character, until the publication of some recent works², scholarship on rural settlement in this region has been mostly limited to the study of a few well known monumental villae³ such as Valdetorres del Jarama (Madrid)⁴, Carranque (Toledo)⁵, or El Val (Alcalá de Henares)⁶. The study of these Late Roman villae, and most specifically of their elegantly decorated partes urbanae⁷, has been the main feature of the study of the rural world in this part of Roman Spain.

The promulgation of regional laws on Historical Heritage (for instance, Ley 10/1998 de Patrimonio Histórico de la Comunidad de Madrid⁸) introduced a fundamental change in the management of the local archaeological record⁹. This legislation required that preventive excavations be conducted on all archaeological sites affected by any kind of construction project. This normative change, alongside the unbridled urban development that occurred in the metropolitan area of Madrid from the late 1990s until the financial crisis of 2008, led to the discovery and excavation of more than 20 new Roman rural sites in the region¹⁰. But more important than the quantitative growth in the number of rural sites recorded is the fact that most of these interventions have documented a considerable number of non-elite or peasant rural settlements from all periods of the Roman occupation in the region¹¹. All these new archaeological data offer us an unprecedented opportunity to define the social and economic structures of the Roman rural communities in this provincial area. In line with some recent European research projects as the Rurland Project¹² or New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain¹³, we believe that the systematic analysis of these sites and finds from preventive interventions opens up an entirely new research horizon with regards to the historical evolution of rural communities in this part of Roman Spain.

2 Peasant Communities and Household Archaeology

Despite the huge potential of the data from preventive interventions, local scholarship is still marked by its adoption of the Carandinian model of the villa system¹⁴ as the supposed core of rural settlement in the region¹⁵. Without undertaking any evaluation of the ambiguous notion of “villa” in the context of Spanish scholarship¹⁶, the extensive application of this term for the classification of most Roman rural sites has implied the assumption of the slave mode of production¹⁷ as the main model of the social and economic structures of rura...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: From Traditional to New Approaches: Methodological Insights
• Part II: Beyond Villascapes: Peasants in Landscapes
• Part III: Comparing Villae and Peasants Habitats in Settlement Systems
• List of Contributors
• List of Figures
• Index