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.

'Mirobriga - Regina Turdulorum: Town and Country in the Far Roman West' (MiReg) was carried out as DACh project jointly by the Universities of Marburg and Vienna, where it ran from September 1, 2021, to November 30, 2025. Although the project was conceived and implemented cooperatively, this summary concerns the research of the Vienna part as the integration of the results is not fully completed. MiReg involved the first systematic intensive surveys in the areas surrounding Mirobriga (province Lusitania) and Regina Turdulorum (province Baetica). Supplemented by numerous scientific analyses and the evaluation of legacy data, a completely new picture of land use and urban-rural relations was obtained, deconstructing previous narratives. Intra-urban surveys in Mirobriga, together with geophysical measurements, showed that the city was only irregularly built up. No evidence of intensive agriculture was found in the vicinity of the city, not even in the area around the hippodrome, which had previously been considered the main cultivation area for grain to supply the city. Further surveys in the north and especially in the east made it likely that the catchment area of Mirobriga had been larger than assumed. An on-site survey examined the villa Herdade da Defesa 3 in the Sado Valley, which, as evidenced by MiReg, was used until late antiquity and serves as an example of agricultural production in the hinterland of Mirobriga. MiReg gained an even more precise picture of land use and city-hinterland relations in the surroundings of Regina Turdulorum, which clearly contradicts previous ideas: in contrast to prior research, the hinterland was not a homogeneous villa landscape for intensive agriculture according to Roman models. Surveys, together with archaeobotanical and archaeozoological investigations, suggest that livestock farming was the main activity and that smaller buildings predominated. The only villas are found at a greater distance from Regina in the north and at the foot of the Sierra Morena, where intensive agriculture was practiced. By no means was the territorium of Regina Turdulorum a 'Romanized landscape' as commonly thought, also because no centuriatio could be proven. The interpretation of Regina Turdulorum as a mining center cannot be upheld either, due to the lack of archaeological evidence. For the historical development of the entire region, the reassessment of the settlement on Cerro de las Nieves is decisive. It can now be clearly traced back to the 2nd century BCE and seen as the predecessor to the Julio-Claudian foundation on the plain. Regarding urban-rural relations, a key issue for MiReg, it can be summarized that Regina Turdulorum, as a small town with many deficiencies, was certainly not the dominant force in the landscape, but merely performed administrative and religious functions for a population that mostly lived outside the city.