ICAC

Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica

MIRMED-GIAC

Population and Territory in the Roman period

/ Research / Research Groups / MIRMED-GIAC / Population and Territory in the Roman period
Members

IP: Joaquim Pera Isern (UAB)

César Carreras Monfort (UAB)
Esther Rodrigo Requena (UAB)
Núria Romaní Sala (UAB)
Pau De Soto Cañamares (UAB)
Esther Gurri (UAB)

The history of Rome was shaped around the basic unit that structured its landscape: the civitas, the city, made up of an urban centre and its territory. It was in the city that the major political, economic and social decisions concerning each territory were made, just as Rome was the place where decisions affecting the Empire as a whole were taken. The process and the way in which Roman structures penetrated the territories of the Catalan area determined the extent to which they were assimilated and the degree to which pre-Roman features were preserved. In the civitas, urban centres, as seats of power, acted as drivers of the local system and as nodes within the great network of cities of the Roman Empire.The economic basis, however, lay in the countryside, within an essentially agrarian society. The ruling class was divided between its residences in the urban centre, the domus, and the villas, a true extension of the urbs through the activities carried out at the country estates of large landowners, in the celebrated concept of urbs in rure. The city’s most emblematic architecture, particularly the forum and its key buildings, but also entertainment buildings, baths and temples, makes it possible to understand how the system functioned. For this reason, these structures have become symbols of Roman civilisation and help us identify the political, social and economic organisation of Roman society, as well as the particular characteristics of each city.

Beyond the city walls, Roman planning extended across the territory through centuriation systems, often representing an extension of the urban layout into the surrounding countryside. The organisation of the ager, with its orthogonal land divisions, road networks, stationes and mansiones, bridges, ports, settlement units — particularly villas — aqueducts, rural temples, markets and necropolises, all following the Roman structure while adapting to local particularities, was regulated by the laws of the city, within the impressive framework of Roman law. To disentangle what was local from what was distinctly Roman in each city, it is necessary to analyse the entire system and its components in depth. However, contacts with the outside world were also decisive, and the cities of the Roman world can be understood as part of a networked organisation. Surplus production was transported throughout Europe and to parts of Asia and Africa through the extensive land and maritime transport network built by Rome.

CITROM is a research team in the field of classical archaeology, involving researchers from the ICAC and UAB, which seeks to address the major historical questions of the Roman period through archaeological data and from an interdisciplinary, diachronic and modern perspective. By combining the most innovative methodologies with archaeological excavation, this research team analyses significant aspects of Roman urbanism, the organisation and evolution of the territory, politics, the economy, transport and trade in the Roman period; it examines the solutions implemented by Roman authorities and the structures established to exercise control over and exploit the territory; it studies different types of settlements, including urban centres, rural settlements, logistics centres, military camps, fortifications, castella, administrative control centres, etc.; it analyses the economic foundations on which they were based; and it examines the structure of the territory and landscape, including road networks, hydraulic systems, centuriations, coastlines and geographical features.

With the overarching aim of addressing the major questions surrounding classical archaeology, CITROM structures its research around three main research objectives.

1. The archaeology of the urban centre of the Roman city

The CITROM group conducts extensive research into the archaeology of Roman urbanism and architecture. For more than 15 years, this research team has carried out various research projects in several Roman cities in Catalonia, such as Iesso, Iulia Libica and Tarraco. As a result of this work, forums, baths, domus, temples, streets, gates and city walls have been excavated and analysed in these Roman cities. Members of the group have made significant contributions to the study and publication of articles and monographs on different aspects of the Roman city, including detailed plans of cities, studies of domestic architecture, urban planning and its streets, as well as public buildings and spaces (forums, baths,…).

2. The archaeology of territory and settlement patterns

Understanding the evolution of territorial occupation and the economy is one of the main research areas of this research group. Since its beginnings, CITROM has developed major research projects that are updating our knowledge of the processes of territorial occupation and management, and the evolution of settlement patterns from the Iberian period to Late Antiquity, such as the Ager Tarraconensis project.

Through the systematic compilation of all available archaeological documentation, the study of archaeological materials, particularly ceramics, systematic and intensive field survey campaigns, and the application of new technologies such as geophysics (ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry and electrical resistivity) and *Remote Sensing*, CITROM has studied and characterised extensive territories associated with major Roman cities.

An important line of research within these studies has focused on the systematisation of different settlement types, as reflected in the TIR-FOR project and its mapping of settlement patterns. CITROM has carried out numerous studies on Roman villas in Catalonia and along the Mediterranean coast.

Within this broader line of research on territory, CITROM is currently developing an important research line on the process of Romanisation in the eastern territories of the Iberian Peninsula, offering innovative interpretations of the earliest phases of the Roman presence. Its aim is to analyse the solutions implemented by the Roman authorities to control certain territories of the peninsula in the period immediately following the conquest and prior to the foundation of cities, based on the excavation and analysis of different types of second-century BC settlements (logistics centres, castella and administrative control centres), among which the sites of Mons Observans stand out: Can Tacó-Turó d’en Roina (Montmeló-Montornès del Vallès) and Puig Castellar (Biosca).

3. Production, trade and transport routes

The relationship between the city and its territory in the Roman period was often shaped by the production of goods and their movement, both from production centres to nearby cities and from these cities to destinations throughout the Roman Empire.

CITROM has a long-standing track record in the study of the production and distribution of Tarraconensian wine (CITA Project). Most of the production centres of Tarraconensian amphorae were located within urban territories close to transport networks (maritime, riverine or road networks). For this reason, in recent years the research group has been compiling an inventory of these production centres and their associated amphora stamps, which help to establish more precise chronologies, understand social relationships and link them to medieval toponymy.

Transport routes are also one of the group’s main areas of research, currently focused on the study, documentation and dissemination of Roman roads in the western part of the Roman Empire.

Finally, one of the group’s important research topics is the distribution of population from the pre-Roman period to Late Antiquity across the territory that would eventually become the province of Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis.

4. Linked Open Data

This methodological objective of recording and disseminating archaeological data cuts across all of CITROM’s research lines. The “City, Territory and Settlement in the Roman Period” research team is fully committed to new methodologies for disseminating and sharing data produced through publicly funded projects. In accordance with the H2020 guidelines, all archaeological data produced within the team’s projects are made available through open-access platforms.

Furthermore, CITROM is a leading research team in the development of protocols for the distribution and linking of data with other projects through the Semantic Web and Linked Open Data in the Humanities. CITROM currently leads two major international projects based on this methodological approach.

The TIR-FOR project is carried out under the auspices of the Union Académique Internationale (UAI) and is designed to create the most comprehensive and scientifically rigorous interactive map and *gazetteer* of archaeological sites across the Roman Empire. At the same time, it allows research from all ongoing projects to be integrated through a powerful interactive mapping system linked to research and historical interpretation. Direct collaboration with research teams from several countries involved in the TIR-FOR project, working on the same subject, makes it possible to extend comparative analyses to different regions of the Roman world.

And the Viator-e project, meanwhile, aims to digitise and make openly available the routes of Roman roads in the western part of the Roman Empire.

This team focuses its research on the Roman city and its articulation with the surrounding territory, from the perspectives of urban archaeology and rural settlement. Research focuses on four areas: the Camp de Tarragona (Tarraco), la Segarra and Urgell (Iesso), Vallès Oriental and Maresme, and Cerdanya (*Iulia Libica*). Direct collaboration with groups from various countries involved in the international Tabula Imperii Romani/Forma Orbis Romani project, working on the same subject, makes it possible to extend comparative analyses to different regions of the Roman world.

The main objective of the research carried out by this group is to analyse the solutions implemented by the Roman authorities to control certain territories of the Iberian Peninsula in the period immediately following the conquest and prior to the foundation of cities. Different types of settlement are analysed, including logistics centres, military camps, castella, administrative control centres, etc.

Ongoing projects:

1. The archaeology of the urban centre of the Roman city

2. The archaeology of territory and settlement

Dates: 01/01/2018 / 31/12/2021

3. Production, trade and transport routes

Dates: 01/07/2012 / 31/12/2021

4. Linked Open Data

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