Search results

This title presents an overview of the results of the research project DESPAMED funded by the Spanish Minister of Economy and Competitiveness. It discusses the theoretical challenges posed by the study of social inequality and social complexity in early medieval peasant communities in north-western Iberia

This paper aims to study sociopolitical practices and the territorial shapes of power in the early medieval Castilian counties. The emergence in recent decades of a robust social history of power in north-western Iberia has allowed to propose new interpretive frameworks stressing the role of aristocracy and county elite. However, the new archaeological records are challenging these assumptions providing some features of local societies and analyzing, from new perspectives, the social and political dynamics of the Castilian area. This work is focused on the case of Lantarón, one of the smaller territories at the head of which an count is attested in the 9th-10th centuries. Using a multi-scale and comparative analysis, it is argued that the strong identity of local societies, the existence of a high degree of political compartmentalization and the dispersion of different centers of authority allowed the construction of forms of a relational territorialization. This new territorialization has opened the horizons of political practices at different scales. Lantarón's case study allows us to propose an ideal type of relational state in which consensus and political networks are more relevant than the patrimonial bases of power. Keywords State, Power, Authority, Hierarchical heterarchy, Relational Territorialization, Patronage. ; El objetivo de este artículo es analizar los condados castellanos altomedievales a partir del estudio de las prácticas sociopolíticas y las formas de territorialización del poder. La emergencia en los últimos decenios de una historia social del poder en el noroeste peninsular ha permitido proponer algunos itinerarios interpretativos que inciden, principalmente, en la agencia de los personajes connotados con el título condal. No obstante, el incremento de las intervenciones arqueológicas disponibles permite identificar algunos rasgos de las sociedades locales y analizar, desde nuevas perspectivas, las dinámicas sociales y políticas del área castellana. Este trabajo se centra en el caso de Lantarón, uno de los territorios de menores dimensiones a cuya cabeza aparece un conde en los siglos IX-X. Recurriendo a un análisis multiescalar y comparativo se argumenta que la fuerte identidad de las sociedades locales, la existencia de un alto grado de compartimentación política y la dispersión funcional de los centros de autoridad permitió la construcción de formas de territorialización relacional. Esta nueva territorialización permitió que se ensanchasen los horizontes de las prácticas políticas a distintas escalas. El caso de estudio de Lantarón permite proponer un tipo ideal de estado relacional en el que los consensos y las redes políticas son más relevantes que las bases patrimoniales del poder. Este trabajo se centra en el caso de Lantarón, uno de los territorios de menores dimensiones a cuya cabeza aparece un conde en los siglos IX-X. Recurriendo a un análisis multiescalar y comparativo se argumenta que la fuerte identidad de las sociedades locales, la existencia de un alto grado de compartimentación política y la dispersión funcional de los centros de autoridad permitió la construcción de formas de territorialización relacional. Esta nueva territorialización permitió que se ensanchasen los horizontes de las prácticas políticas a distintas escalas. El caso de estudio de Lantarón permite proponer un tipo ideal de estado relacional en el que los consensos y las redes políticas son más relevantes que las bases patrimoniales del poder.

This paper aims to analyse local early medieval societies in north-western Iberia through local proprietorial churches. The existence of private churches active at local scales is well known from the written sources and material evidence. Usually these buildings have been studied and viewed through the prism of the emergence of village leaders and local elites projecting their positions to the wider world by means of participation in client networks with regional territorial powers. This article attempts to explore local societies as arenas of confrontation and negotiation with the wider world through the creation of a politics of belonging, differentiation and exclusion, articulated through local churches. Two regions of the northwest are compared: one characterised by close proximity to the monarchy (Asturias) and the other by its distance from the principal focus of power between the 8th and 10th centuries (Basque Country). The local churches are studied from three perspectives: their technologies of construction, the relationship between the churches and other elements constituting the social landscape, and the construction of identities and local societies over the longer-term. ; El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las sociedades locales altomedievales del noroeste peninsular a partir de sus iglesias propias. La existencia de iglesias privadas fundadas por colectivos y líderes aldeanos de distinta entidad es bien conocida tanto a través de la documentación escrita como de la evidencia material. Estas construcciones han sido estudiadas desde el prisma de la emergencia de líderes aldeanos y élites locales que se proyectan hacia el exterior mediante la participación en redes clientelares vinculándose con los poderes de escala territorial. En este trabajo se pretende explorar las sociedades locales como espacios de participación, confrontación y negociación inter y extracomunitaria a través de la activación de políticas de pertenencia, diferenciación y exclusión articuladas a través de las iglesias locales. Para ello se confrontan dos regiones del noroeste, una de ellas caracterizada por la proximidad de la monarquía (Asturias) frente a otra distante respecto a los principales focos de poder en los siglos viii-x (País Vasco). Las iglesias locales serán analizadas desde tres puntos de vista: las tecnologías constructivas, la relación entre las iglesias y otros elementos constitutivos del paisaje social, y la construcción de las identidades en las sociedades locales en términos de larga duración.

The aim of this paper is to analyze large-sized domestic architectures dated in the early medieval period attested in some areas of North-western Iberia, defined as longhouses. This term has been used implicitly by different archaeological traditions to designate elongated structures that have very heterogeneous dimensions, functionalities and social meanings. Some European traditions have defined this type of structures in functional (byre-houses), formal (elongated plants) or typological terms, while in central Italy early medieval longhouses are considered as residence of intermediate elites. The Alava Plain case study is discussed in order to analyze the social context of longhouses occupations. Hereafter, these buildings are analyzed in the context of the house biography approach, arguing these households had a seminal role in the articulation of local and supralocal political communities. ; El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar un grupo de construcciones domésticas de cronología altomedieval de notables dimensiones que ha sido identificado en el último decenio en algunos sectores del noroeste de la península ibérica y que han sido definidas como longhouses. Este es un término que ha sido utilizado de forma implícita por parte de varias tradiciones arqueológicas para designar estructuras alargadas que cuentan con dimensiones, funcionalidades y significados sociales muy heterogéneos entre sí. Algunas tradiciones europeas han definido este tipo de estructuras en términos funcionales (casa-establo), formales (plantas alargadas) o tipológicos, mientras que en el centro de Italia se han identificado con residencias de las élites intermedias. Tomando como caso de estudio la llanada de Álava, en este artículo se realiza una caracterización social de los contextos en los que se han hallado este tipo de construcciones y, a continuación, se analiza desde la perspectiva de la biografía cultural de la casa la articulación de las comunidades políticas locales y supralocales de este territorio.

Evolution and change in agricultural practice is a major factor in the codification of social relations and represents one of the main resources employed by human societies to establish a durable relationship with their environment. Using a multi-proxy integrated approach, this paper seeks to decipher the long-term dynamics that have shaped agricultural landscapes in the Basque Country (N Spain). Social and economic indicators (archival records, toponymy and oral sources) are used along with geological core sampling (geochemistry, magnetic, palynological and carpological analyses) to reconstruct a diachronic sequence of human settlement and agricultural management in the village of Aizarna over the last ~1500 years. The oldest records obtained refer to non-agricultural human activities dating back to the Roman period. Later on, traces of agricultural landscape-transformation can be divided into four main phases: 1) the onset of terraced agriculture, defined by the clearance and terracing of previous forested areas during the Early Middle Ages; 2) a Late Medieval reorganisation, with new terraces being (re)constructed close to dispersed farmsteads, linked to the emergence of the modern rural landscape; 3) a new model of intensive polyculture developed during the Modern period as a consequence of the introduction of new crops of American origin; and 4) the mechanisation and commercialisation of the agricultural production over the 20th century. These results provide a valuable pathway for the investigation of currently inhabited rural contexts, and offer, for the first time in this region, an overview on long-term landscape construction in the Atlantic areas of the Basque Country. ; Fieldwork was funded by the Culture Department of the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa, and by the Project "Peasant Agency and socio-political complexity in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages" (Ministry of Economy, AEI/FEDER EU HUM2016-76094-C4-2-R), jointly participated in by the Research Group on Heritage and Cultural Landscapes (Basque Government, IT936-16) and the Group of Rural Studies (UPV/EHU-CSIC Associated Unit). Á. Carrancho acknowledges the financial support given by the Consejería de Educación, Junta de Castilla y León (project BU235P18) with also FEDER funding.

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Introduction -- 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 -- Perceiving the Countryside: Some Thoughts on the Representation of Agrarian Cycles and Tasks in the Mosaics of Roman Spain -- Investigating Livestock Practices in the Countryside of Roman Spain: An Archaeozoological Approach -- Part II: Beyond Villascapes: Peasants in Landscapes -- A Peasant Landscape in the Eastern Roman Spain. An Archaeological Approach to Territorial Organization and Economic Models -- Exploring the Complexity of Roman Agrarian Landscapes. State of the Art and a Study Case from the Southwestern Iberian Peninsula -- Roman Peasantry, Spatial Archaeology, and Off-site Survey in Hispania -- Part III: Comparing Villae and Peasants Habitats in Settlement Systems -- On the Margins of the Villa System? Rural Architecture and Socioeconomic Strategies in North-Eastern Roman Spain -- Villae and Farms: Early Imperial Rural Settlement in the Adaja-Eresma Basin (Central Roman Spain) -- With the measure you use you will be measured back… Late Roman and Early Medieval Peasants in Central Spain on Examination -- From Villa to Village? Relational Approaches within Roman and Medieval Iberian Rural Societies -- Conclusions -- List of Contributors -- List of Figures -- Index