On the Margins of the Villa System? Rural Architecture and Socioeconomic Strategies in North-Eastern Roman Spain

Abstract

The study of the rural habitat in north-eastern Hispania Citerior has been conditioned by a paradigm built on two complementary assumptions: the apparent hegemony of the villa as a form of territorial occupation and exploitation and the separation between the villa system and the peasant economy. In this context, rural buildings that are clearly different from the architectural model of the villa have been interpreted as the expression of ways of life characterized by socioeco nomic and cultural alterity. However, progress made in research shows that the spread of the villa system is associated with the diffusion of a settlement pattern characterized by the simultaneous presence of very different types of buildings. These buildings are distributed hierarchically in the rural space and with an unequal density in relation to specific forms of the exploitation of territorial resources. The analysis of this evidence makes it possible to question the traditional paradigm that oppose the villa system with the peasant economy and to better evaluate, from another perspective, the process of cultural change generated by the Roman conquest.