Roman farmers in eastern Iberia. Spatial, geoarchaeological and bioarchaeological approach to agrarian strategies

Recent Archaeological landscape studies in the Valley of Alcoi (Eastern Iberia) have detected important settlement changes during the 1st c. BC related to Roman territorial organization. Rural settlement of previous Iberian Iron Age was confined to areas close to fortified oppida due to defensive strategies, but Roman pacification and dominion of the region created a context of political stability that allowed an increase of rural sites, with significant occupation of previously empty areas. The resulting rural landscape was composed by small farms connected to small plots of intensive uses, with manuring and terracing as agrarian strategies. This spatial organization characterized the later Roman Imperial Landscape. The aim of this communication is to present the archaeological data that permits the characterization of this landscape of intensive farmers. We present an analytical strategy combining spatial analysis, microstratigraphic analysis by means of soil micromorphology and physical-chemical analyses of bulk soil samples, as well as archaeobotanical analyses including palynology, phytoliths and other calcitic microfossils. This high-resolution, multiscalar, and multianalytical approach pursues to characterize these archaeological contexts to singularize these intensive agricultural practices. The creation of this peasant landscape is related to specifics models of economic and social organization in the Roman period.