Rock-cut cemeteries and settlement processes at the Upper Arlanza Basin (Burgos, Spain): A late antique and early medieval landscape analisis

Abstract

Current research at the archaeological sites of the Upper Arlanza Basin (Burgos) offers new and interesting insights in order to understand village networks which probably played a leading role within this territory. Peasants used to live in scattered nuclei usually organized around a church surrounded by a rock-cut cemetery. Researchers must properly address the role played by these communities, their funerary practices, and their strong influence on this territory in order to get an overall comprehension of landscape organization in this area over the period stretching between 6th and 10th Centuries. Our work aims at examining settlement patterns and funerary practices in remote mountain areas. This paper offers a general view on this complex panorama and discusses the general features of these archaeological sites, through the analysis and updating of archaeological register. Archaeological evidence points towards the existence of some patterns of behaviour that might have been shared by different communities in this area.