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ABSTRACT
The occupation of hillforts may be considered as one of the most radical and noticeable changes undergone by Western Europe’s post-Roman landscapes. These sites have traditionally been interpreted from a top-down perspective, usually linked to such monocausal explanations as the Barbarian invasions. However, the archaeological data shows that hillfort occupation was a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that does not strictly conform to such interpretations. Multi proxy spatial analyses based on regional and comparative approaches constitute a powerful tool for a more complex social analysis which can further our understanding of this phenomenon. Evidence gathered in northern Spain over the last decades makes this region a perfect case study to test these analyses. Hence, we will propose three different models to approach hillfort occupation related to different mechanisms deployed by communities inside them to exercise power and control over peoples and resources. We will argue that, as well as constituting military nodes, hillfort occupations can be understood as an adaptive process of post-Roman elites to reproduce domination and inequalities over local communities and resources at a time of rapid and profound structural changes.
Acknowledgements
We want to thank Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and Alfonso Vigil-Escalera for his comments, Álvaro Carvajal Castro and Pedro Pablo Fermín Maguire for his deep revision of the text and the two peer reviewers for their comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Carlos Tejerizo-García is a postdoctoral researcher whose work focuses on the archaeology of peasant societies, mainly in medieval Iberia. Among his recent books are Arqueología de las sociedades campesinas en la cuenca del Duero (ss. V-VIII) (Bilbao 2017) and The Iberian Peninsula Between 300 and 850. An Archaeological Perspective (Amsterdam 2018).
Jorge Canosa Betés is a doctoral researcher specialized in GIS data management and landscape archaeology. He has published in leading journals such as Journal of Archaeological Science and Arqueoweb.
Notes
1 Even though exaggerated by some sources; see Van Nuffelen, “Not much happened.”
2 Ward-Perkins, The fall of Rome; Wickham, The inheritance of Rome.
3 We understand power as “the capacity of A to participate in the making of decisions that affect B but also as the capacity to create or reinforce 'barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts”: Bachrach, “Two faces of power.” See also Paynter, “The archaeology of equality and inequality,” 369–370
4 From radically different points of view, this is the conclusion of classical studies on power such as those by Mann (The sources of social power) and Foucault (Hay que defender la Sociedad).
5 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages; Valenti, L'insediamento altomedievale nelle campagne toscane.
6 Heather, Goths and romans, 314–322; Castellanos y Martín Viso, “The local articulation of central power.”
7 Brogiolo, Chavarría Arnau, and Valenti, Dopo la fine delle ville; Chavarría Arnau, “Considerazioni sulla fine delle ville in occidente.”
8 Hamerow, Early medieval settlements; Klapste and Nissen-Jaubert, “Rural Settlement”; Theuws, “Changing settlement patterns.”
9 Virgil-Escalera, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales.
10 Brogiolo, Gauthier and Christie, Towns and their territories; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and its cities.
11 Francovich and Hodges, Villa to village; Kobylinski, “Early medieval hillforts”; Schneider, “Oppida et castra tardo-antiques.”
12 Martínez Jiménez and Tejerizo García, “Central places in the post-roman Mediterranean.”
13 Ariño Gil and Díaz Martínez, “La frontera suevo-visigoda”; Brogiolo and Gelichi, Nuove ricerche sui castelli altomedievali.
14 Castellanos and Martín Viso, “The local articulation of central power”; Quirós Castillo, “Archaeology of power and hierarchies.”
15 Gutiérrez González, “Fortificaciones tardoantiguas y visigodas.”
16 Mrozowski, “Landscapes of inequality”; Quirós Castillo, “Archaeology of power and hierarchies” and “Inequality and social complexity”; Tilley, A phenomenology of landscape.
17 Escalona Monge, “The Early Middle Ages”; Marquardt and Crumley, “Theoretical issues in the analysis of spatial patterning.”
18 Gutiérrez González, “Fortificaciones tardoantiguas y visigodas”; Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages.
19 Orton and Hodder, Análisis espacial en Arqueología.
20 All the viewshed analyses have been equally calculated for all the examples presented here, taking into account all the points of the perimeter of the wall, supposing an average height of 5 m for the walls, and 1.6 m for the observer. Analyses have been carried out in Arcmap 10.4 over a DEM of 25 m/pixel from the National Geographic Institute of Spain with the walls integrated in the topography.
21 We will focus specially on the presence of potential arable lands in the surroundings of the sites. We have considered non-cultivable lands to be those with slopes higher than 18% (because of soil erosion: Uriarte et al., “Elaboración de mapas de usos”), rock or water surfaces, and the inner spaces of the hillforts.
22 Wheatley, “Connecting landscapes with built environments.”
23 Rua, Gonçalves, and Figueiredo, “Assessment of the lines of Torres Vedras”; Canosa-Betés, “Border Surveillance” and Smith and Cochrane, “How is visibility important for defence?”; and Criado Boado and Villoch Vázquez, “La monumentalización del paisaje.”
24 Kobylinski, Early medieval hillforts; Schneider, “Oppida et castra tardo-antiques”; Theuws, “The integration of the Kempen Region.”
25 Gutiérrez González, Fortificaciones y feudalismo, “Fortificaciones visigodas y conquista islámica” and “Fortificaciones tardoantiguas y visigodas”; Quirós Castillo, “Introducción.”
26 Barceló, “Los husus, los castra y los fantasmas que aún los habitan,” 25.
27 Ariño Gil and Díaz Martínez, “El Campo: propiedad y explotación de la tierra”
28 Chavarría Arnau, “Villae tardoantiguas en el valle del Duero.”
29 Chavarría Arnau, El final de las villae en Hispania; Vigil-Escalera, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales; and Tejerizo García, “The end of the world as we know it”; Idem, Arqueología de las sociedades campesinas.
30 Tejerizo García y Vigil-Escalera, “Castro Ventosa y La Cabeza de Navasangil.”
31 Brogiolo and Gelichi, Nuove ricerche sui castelli altomedievali; Quirós Castillo, “Archaeology of power and hierarchies.”
32 Quirós Castillo, “Archaeology of power and hierarchies.”
33 Quirós Castillo, “Introducción.”
34 Quirós Castillo, “Introducción”; Vigil-Escalera and Tejerizo García, “Asentamientos fortificados altomedievales en la Meseta.”
35 Normally visible through the presence of ceramics related to the so-called Terra Sigillata Hispánica Tardía (Hispanic Late Samian Ware), their imitations or grey stamped ware (Virgil-Escalera, “Las últimas producciones de TSHT en el interior peninsular”).
36 Quirós Castillo and Bengoetxea Rementeria, Arqueología III, 159. In some of the sites, including those which are currently inhabited, the perimeter of the wall may be not very clear, as in Coca or Castro Urdiales. However, these considerations are insufficient to undermine the conclusions.
37 For a general overview of the process, see Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and its cities.
38 Diarte Blasco, “New thinking in old landscapes.”
39 Estremera, Centeno and Quintana, Arqueología urbana en Ávila; Sevillano Fuertes, “La muralla romana de Astorga (León).”
40 Martínez Jiménez y Tejerizo García, “Central places in the post-roman mediterranean,” 86–88.
41 Williams, “Monuments and the past in early Anglo-Saxon England.”
42 Vigil-Escalera, “El asentamiento encastillado altomedieval de la Dehesa de la Oliva.”
43 Caballero Arribas and Peñas Pedrero, “Un castrum de época visigoda,” 222.
44 Vigil-Escalera, “El asentamiento encastillado altomedieval de la Dehesa de la Oliva.”
45 Sastre Blanco and Fuentes Melgar, “Late Roman metallurgy.”
46 Díaz Álvarez y Garín, “Estudio de los materiales arqueológicos de Castro Ventosa.”
47 Balboa De Paz, Díaz Álvarez, and Fernández Vázquez, Actas de las jornadas sobre Castro Ventosa; Contreras et al., “Novedades arqueológicas de Castro Ventosa.”
48 Tejerizo García and Vigil-Escalera, “Castro Ventosa y La Cabeza de Navasangil.”
49 We would like to thank Rebeca Blanco for this information.
50 Marcos Contreras et al., “Novedades arqueológicas de Castro Ventosa.”
51 Strato, “Trabajos arqueológicos en el yacimiento de Castroventosa.”
52 León Asensio and Barona Barona, “Terra Sigillata Africana D.”
53 Arias Vila and Durán Fuentes, “Museo do Castro de Viladonga.”
54 Alcorta Irastorza, Lucus Augusti (vol. II); Paz Peralta, “La vajilla de cerámica hispánica.”
55 Díaz Martínez, “El Reino Suevo (411-585).”
56 Sánchez Pardo, “Power and rural landscapes in early medieval Galicia.”
57 A slightly different hypothesis is presented in Díaz Martínez, “El Reino Suevo (411-585),” 172.
58 Díaz, El reino suevo
59 Caballero Arribas and Peñas Pedrero, “Un castrum de época visigoda.”
60 Tejerizo García and Vigil-Escalera, “Castro Ventosa y La Cabeza de Navasangil.”
61 Abásolo Álvarez et al., Excavaciones en el yacimiento de la Morterona.
62 Vigil-Escalera, Los primeros paisajes altomedievales.
63 Nozal Calvo, “El yacimiento de Olmeda.”
64 Nozal Calvo and Puertas Gutiérrez, La terra sigillata paleocristiana gris.
65 Abásolo Álvarez, et al., Excavaciones en el yacimiento de la Morterona, 172.
66 Gonzalo González, El Cerro del Castillo.
67 Martín Viso, “Prácticas locales de fiscalidad.”
68 Blanco García, “El circuito amurallado de Coca.”
69 Blanco García, “Coca. Cauca”; Lucas de Viñas, “La necrópolis de ‘El Cantosal’.”
70 Gozalo Viejo, Gonzalo González and Blanco García, “El Cerro Tormejón.”
71 Tejerizo et al., “La construcción histórica de los paisajes.”
72 Maluquer De Motes, “Excavaciones arqueológicas en el castro de ‘Las Merchanas’.”
73 Tejado Sebastián, “Castros altomedievales en el alto Iregua.”
74 Domínguez Bolaños and Nuño González, “Reflexiones sobre los sistemas defensivos”; Sastre and Catalán, “Un asentamiento fortificado en la tardoantigüedad.”
75 Klein, The shock doctrine.
76 Gutiérrez González, “Fortificaciones tardoantiguas y visigodas,” 205–206.
77 Paynter, “The archaeology of equality and inequality.”
78 Leone, Critical Historical Archaeology; Mcguire and Bernbeck, “Ideology.”
79 Mann, The sources of social power, 7.
80 Martínez Jiménez and Tejerizo García, “Central places in the post-roman Mediterranean.”
81 Quirós y Vigil-Escalera, “Networks of peasant villages”; Tejerizo García, Arqueología de las sociedades campesinas.
82 Wickham, Framing the early Middle Ages.
83 Vigil-Escalera, Bianchi, and Quirós Castillo, Horrea, Barns and silos.
84 Gutiérrez González, “Fortificaciones tardoantiguas y visigodas.”
85 Martínez Jiménez and Tejerizo García, “Central places in the post-roman Mediterranean.”
86 Quirós Castillo and Bengoetxea Rementeria, Arqueología III; Schneider, “Oppida et castra tardo-antiques”; Brogiolo, “Towns, forts and the countryside.”
87 Halsall, Barbarian migrations and the Roman West.
88 Halsall, “Two worlds become one,” 524.
89 Ariño Gil and Díaz Martínez, “La frontera suevo-visigoda.”
90 Vigil-Escalera, “El asentamiento encastillado altomedieval.”
91 Foucault, Surveiller et punir.