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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of unpublished data on this kind of rural settlements.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.
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