Mirobriga - Regina T.: Town and Country in the Roman Far We

Up to the present day, town and country are considered as profoundly different spheres. Rural living, especially when agriculturally based, is regarded as frugal and conservative, while urban living is considered as prosperous and innovative. What was this (supposed) contrast like, about 2000 years ago in the Roman Far West, in a historical period characterised by urbanisation even of peripheral regions? In previous research emphasis was overwhelmingly given to towns, mostly neglecting the hinterlands. Thus often a contrast was constructed between the urban centre and the rural periphery. This approach promoted the view that towns were more homogeneous and Roman, while in countryside more options of heterogeneity reaching from Roman- style agriculture to landscapes of resistance have been possible. To overcome this separation betw een urban and rural studies and to critically review the supposition of a dichotomy between town and countryside is the main goal of the project proposed. To achieve that aim the primary task of the project is to compile a sound data basis for analys ing urban- rural-relations on a comparative basis. Thus two smaller towns in the far west of the Roman Empire showing many similarities, e.g. in their size and chronological evolution, have been chosen for further investigations. The selected locations are on the one hand Mirobriga, located next to Santiago do Cac ém (Portugal), near to the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, and on the other hand Regina Turdulorum, next to the Spanish village of Casa de Reina, located at the northern edge of the Sierra Morena. The period between the 2nd cent. BCE and the 3rd cent. CE has been adopted as the investigation period a time when even this western part of the Iberian Peninsula was integrated into the Roman Empire and fundamental social, cultural and economic changes took place. The project is methodologically based on geoarchaeology, remote sensing, geophysical prospection, field surveys and small-scale excavations, including pottery and archaeobotanical analyses. It will be exec uted by an experienced team of scientists, mostly from Vienna University (PI: Prof. G. Schörner) and Marburg University (PI: Prof. Felix Teichner), and will result in tracing mechanisms and material expressions of urban-rural relations in the Hispania Romana in a historical perspective.