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An Off-Site Approach to Late Iron Age and Roman Landscapes on the Northern Plateau, Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Jesús García-Sánchez  and
Miguel Cisneros
Jesús García-Sánchez*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
Miguel Cisneros*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
*
[email: miguel.cisneros@unican.es]
[email: jesus.garciasan@gmail.com]
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Abstract

Since 2009, a large-scale archaeological field survey – the Ager Segisamonensis Survey Project – has been carried out on the Northern Plateau of the Iberian Peninsula, in the Burgos province (Castilla y León), Spain. The aim of this project is to understand the Iron Age/Roman transition in terms of settlement strategies and landscape exploitation. The field survey has been undertaken in the landscape surrounding an Iron Age settlement and the successive Roman city of Segisamo – modern Sasamón. The goal is not the discovery of new settlements, but the recognition of the so-called ‘dwelling landscape’ and its evolution. In this article, we highlight our field survey methodology based on hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) instruments and the creation of a recording system of ‘aggregation units'.

Au cours des trois dernières années, un programme régional de prospection au sol, le Ager Segisamonensis Survey Project, a été développé sur le plateau du nord de la péninsule ibérique (Burgos, Espagne). L'objectif de ce projet est de comprendre la transition entre Âge du Fer et époque romaine en ce qui concerne les stratégies d'implantation et l'exploitation du paysage. Les prospections ont été effectuées dans les alentours d'un village de l'Âge du Fer et de la ville romaine de Segisamo (aujourd'hui Sasamón, Burgos, Castilla y León) lui succédant. Le but n'est pas la découverte de nouveaux sites, mais la reconnaissance du supposé paysage d'habitation et de son évolution pendant l'ère de transition lors de la conquête romaine de la péninsule ibérique. Nous insistons sur l'importance de la méthodologie de prospection basée sur des instruments GPS portables et la création d'un système d'unités d'agrégation, qui vont de pair avec plusieurs résultats préliminaires obtenus par analyses statistiques. Translation by Isabelle Gerges.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

In den vergangenen drei Jahren wurde das Ager Segisamonensis Survey Project, ein Programm von Feldsurveys, in der nördlichen Meseta der Iberischen Halbinsel bei Burgos (Spanien) etabliert. Das Ziel dieses Projektes ist es, den Übergang von der Eisenzeit zur Römischen Epoche in Bezug auf Siedlungsstrategien und Landschaftsnutzung zu untersuchen. Die Feldbegehungen wurden in der Umgebung einer eisenzeitlichen Siedlung bzw. der späteren römischen Stadt Segisama, heute Sasamón (Burgos, Autonome Gemeinschaft Kastilien und León), durchgeführt. Das Ziel war dabei nicht die Entdeckung neuer Siedlungen, sondern das Erkennen der sog. Siedlungslandschaft und deren Entwicklung in der Übergangszeit der römischen Eroberung der Iberischen Halbinsel. Wir möchten weiterhin besonders die Feldsurveymethoden auf der Basis von GPS-Handgeräten und die Entwicklung eines System von Aggregationseinheiten herausheben, die eng mit einigen vorläufigen Ergebnissen statistischer Analysen verbunden sind. Translation by Heiner Schwarzberg.

Keywords

landscape archaeologyfield surveyoff-siteGISIberian Iron AgeRoman archaeologyarchéologie du paysageprospection au solhors-siteGISÂge du Fer ibériquearchéologie romaineLandschaftsarchäologieFeldsurveySiedlungsumfeldGISiberische Eisenzeitrömische Archäologie
Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , 2013 , pp. 289 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © European Association of Archaeologists 2013 

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