Portus and stationes along the Southwest Iberian Peninsula: Anchorages of the Huelva coast

Abstract

Research into what is known as the Atlantic Europe of Southwest Spain has highlighted an important network of fluvial coastal anchorages that, in a diachronic way, mark the coastline from the mouth of the Baetis River to the Anas. Most are associated with fishing factories, coastal population settlements, or the port of Onoba itself, and all have meaningful commercial traffic in products that show extensive Mediterranean and Atlantic commercial networks. Based on this context, the aim of this article is to demonstrate that these stationes, besides developing and keeping trade networks, provided a place for boats to shelter as they moved along the southwest coast. To do this, various terrestrial and subaquatic archaeological testimonies will be analyzed, which support the existence and development of a group of ports and anchorage areas with different port and commercial maritime models.

Keywords:

• Port
• anchorage
• statio
• maritime trade
• cetariae
• Onoba

Acknowledgments

This work is framed within the activities of the research projects “From the Atlantic to the Tyrrhenian Sea (second phase), the Hispanic ports and their trading relationship with Ostia Antica” (HAR2017-89154-P) belonging to the National Plan of R and D and “Geo-archaeological and palaeoenvironmental analysis in Atlantic-Mediterranean ports and maritime districts: The Atlantic Europe of the southwest of Spain (Onoba, Huelva) and the mouth of the Tiber (Portus, Rome),” corresponding to the announcement for R and D projects in the framework of the ERDF Operational Programme in Andalusia 2014–2020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In the framework of this hypothesis, the centralizing role of the port of Huelva as the place where the products arrived from the hinterland to start the long-distance coastal fishing route would reside, furthermore, in a clear tax control for the collection of the portorium.