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En la fase terminal de la conquista de Hispania, Roma comenzó a crear en la Península Ibérica una nueva realidad: lo que antes era un territorio de conquista, dividido en dos partes y gobernado por dos magistrados senatoriales con comando militar, se vuelve en tres espacios provinciales de un vasto Imperio centrado en el Mediterráneo. En algunas décadas, estos alejados parajes, el finis terrae, se decía, donde la tierra cede el paso al gran mar Océano, serían lugares tan romanos como la Península Itálica, con sus modelos urbanos, sus modos de organización social, el diseño de sus campos y sus modos de explotar los recursos endógenos. Todo eso ha sido obra de siglos, pero recibió un decisivo impulso de Augusto, el Princeps, a quien usualmente llamamos el primer emperador romano. El modelo se fundamentó en lo que el mismo Augusto indicó en el listado de sus hechos y obras. De una parte, el asentamiento en los espacios provinciales de veteranos del servicio militar; de otra, la clemencia para con muchos de los pueblos conquistados que asimilaran la cultura itálica. Más allá de la propaganda oficial, que seguramente omite algo, los datos del registro arqueológico parecen confirmar la generalidad de esta política. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The well known tower-type buildings seem to be a peculiar issue of the Southwest Roman settlement of the Iberian Peninsula, not related at all with pre-Roman architectural traditions. Despite the excavation undertook in some of them, the lack of publication leaves to many unanswered questions. We may say that they were not military buildings, despite the semblance with Castelo da Lousa, Mourão, a true Roman fort, near Guadiana's river; we also know that there's a widespread of this particular settlement type and not the specific concentration on the Castro Verde / Almodovar area. It seems that this peculiar settlement pattern was developed between the second half of the first Century BC and the first half of the first A. D., maybe before the setting of the classical rural farms and uillae. ; De há longa data são conhecidos vários edifícios de feição turriforme e organização complexa no Sudoeste Peninsular. Embora alguns tenham sido objecto de investigação, a ausência de publicação extensa dos dados que forneceram, inibe uma correcta interpretação das suas funções e tem alimentado um longo debate inconclusivo. No estado actual dos conhecimentos, parece claro que estes edifícios são romanos, sem nenhuma ligação com o mundo indígena; não terão tido uma função militar, em sentido estrito, contrariamente ao que sucede com o Castelo da Lousa, Mourão, uma verdadeira fortaleza, bem distinta dos restantes conhecidos; resulta claro, hoje, que a suposta concentração deste tipo de arquitectura numa região concreta será mais aparente que real. Constituem um modelo de povoamento ensaiado pelos romanos no Sudoeste num lapso de tempo compreendido entre a Segunda metade do século I a. C. e os inícios do I d.C, provavelmente, antecedendo a estabilização do modelo rural clássico.

The archaeological site of Mesas do Castelinho (Almodôvar, southern Portugal) is an Iron Age hill-fort settled in the late fifth century BC. As there is no evidence of any major natural resource in the nearby area, we presume its location is designed to control a natural pass across the uplands at the border between the coastal area of the Algarve and the Alentejo plain. We have strong evidence for early contact with the Romans and no signs of major conflict in that process. The site had a carefully arranged urban setting, dating from Roman Republican times (late second-early first century BC), but the house plans do not seem to reproduce any known typical Italic model. From the reign of Augustus on, many signs of decadence become quite obvious and a final abandonment occurred in the late first or early second century AD. The creation of Lusitania as a Roman province, with its new political and administrative organization, the increasing exploitation of the region's mineral resources and the laying out of the new road network, condemned Mesas do Castelinho to a peripheral condition. The site no longer had a relevant role in the new provincial landscape. Human settlements in the area became dispersed, just small rural sites with no relevant town nearby. Only under Muslim rule, when new small and weak regional powers emerged, was the site occupied once again. Hence the archaeological site of Mesas do Castelinho can be seen as a good case study for an aborted urban setting from before the creation of the Roman province of Lusitania.