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This course provides an introduction to the archaeology, history, and art of Roman Iberia from the 3rd c. BCE through Late Antiquity. The province of Hispania--modern day Spain and Portugal--played an integral role in Roman history. It produced key resources including gold and olive oil, it was the birthplace of emperors Trajan and Hadrian, and the territory itself was transformed with new cities and lavish Roman villas under Roman rule. We will use the rich material and written record of Hispania to examine topics in the social and economic history of the Roman provinces, emphasizing the tensions between local traditions in Roman Iberia and empire-wide trends. We will also consider the lasting impacts of the Roman past on contemporary identities in Spain and Portugal and the practice of archaeology in these countries today.
2020 •
This paper aims to analyse the interaction and process of change that took place in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula as the area came under the control of the Tarraconensis province during the administrative reorganisation of Hispania by Augustus. Following a general cultural description of the region, further detail will be offered of its integration into the bracarensis conventus. The unique characteristics of the local pre-Roman communities and their systems of power led to a particular evolutional process in the region. After describing the main changes in the cities and the territories, we will highlight the negotiation processes underlying the adaptation to the Roman way of life, through which new places, new symbols and new narratives related to identity emerged.
2020 •
Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World | 978-1-119-63071-5
Machuca, F. (2021): “There are always two sides to every story”: Roman rule, cultural continuities and ethnic identity in southern HispaniaJournal of Roman Archaeology
Constructing the archaeology of the Roman conquest of Hispania: new evidence, perspectives and challenges2020 •
The first meeting of specialists from different fields relating to research on the Roman army in Hispania took place in Segovia in 1998 under the title “Roman Military Archaeology in Hispania”. Its aim was to gather within one forum different experts working in this field.1 The term “military archaeology” was provocative in the Spanish academic world of the late 1990s, as military studies were viewed with slight suspicion in some quarters, both by those researching indigenous contexts and by those who remained anchored in a classical concept of Romanisation which rather neglected the contribution of the army to the process of assimilating Hispania into the Roman world. In Anglo-Saxon scholarship other terms with more historiographic tradition (e.g., “Roman army studies” or “Roman frontier studies”) were preferred. The goal in choosing the title of the 1998 congress was to create debate around a topic on which research efforts were becoming increasingly focused. Despite its limitatio...
Pervading Empire Relationality and Diversity in the Roman Provinces
Different Forms of Roman Imperialism. Social and Territorial Changes in Northwestern Iberia from the 2nd. Century BCE to the 2nd Century CE2020 •
Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in Ancient History
"Urbi et Orbi. Rethinking the Roman City in Hispania"2023 •
Traditionally, when almost any subject linked to Ancient Rome was analysed, the attention shifted immediately towards the most well-known case study: the city. Roman Iberia is no exception. Through an exhaustive use of epigraphy and, most recently, the data provided by urban archaeology, the urban layout, the social composition, administrative status and religious and political organisation of Roman cities have been thoroughly studied at least since the 15th century. This paper provides with different interpretations of what and how a Roman civitas is for Ancient and modern authors alike, and exposes the different ways in which it has been categorised, that is, what are the parameters used to define what is and isn’t a city. Using archaeological case studies from Hispania Tarraconensis and the contemporary and Ancients talking about them, I put to test several quintessential claims on that subject with the reality presented by Archaeology, and assess whether century-old paradigms are in need of a revision.
The City and the Coin in the Ancient and Early Medieval Worlds (Fernando López Sánchez, ed.), BAR 2402, Oxford, 2012, p. 17-35.
Cities, drachmae, denarii and the Roman conquest of HispaniaHispania and the Roman Mediterranean, AD 100-700
Hispania and the Roman Mediterranean, AD 100-7002010 •
This paper explores the role of Hispania in the Atlantic route in Roman times. We analyse the different Atlantic Iberian territories along this route, based on recent archaeological advances and discoveries related to trade as well as the shipping infrastructure. The aim is to explain the origin and evolution of a new maritime area that was completely integrated with the political and commercial structure of the Empire, with trade routes that followed the coastal areas of the Iberian Peninsula all the way to the Mediterranean.
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2018 •
2021 •
Collectanea Philologica XXV
The Roman Conquest of Hispania Citerior. Strategies and Archaeological evidence in the north-eastern Peninsular Area. (II-I BCE): The examples of Puig Castellar of Biosca and Can Tacó (Catalonia, Spain).2022 •
HEROM – Journal on Hellenistic and Roman Material Culture
Ceramics, foodways and local ‘sub-cultures’ in north-western Iberia at the height of the Roman Empire. The Castro do Vieito case study.Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces
Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces: Spain2005 •
2022 •
2016 •
Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science
1.8. Configuring the landscape: Roman mining in the conventus Asturum (NW Hispania)2012 •
2021 •
LIMES XXIIII. Proceedings of the 24th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 2nd-9th September 2018, Viminacium-Belgrade, Serbia. Volume I
New archaeological data for the study of the conquest and occupation of NW Iberia in Early Imperial timesRoman Turdetania
Across the Looking Glass: Ethno-Cultural Identities in Southern Hispania through Coinage2019 •
Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft
Review: Jesús BERMEJO TIRADO – Ignasi GRAU MIRA (Hgg.), The Archaeology of Peasantry in Roman Spain. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter 2022, VIII + 299 S., 74 Abb., 7 Tab., EUR 89,95. ISBN: 978-3-11-075720-02024 •
Antiquity 89 347, 1240–1242
Antonio Blanco-González: Review of Cruz Berrocal, M.; García Sanjuán, L. and Gilman, A. (eds.) (2013): The Prehistory of Iberia: Debating Early Social Stratification and the State. New York. Routledge2015 •
A. Álvarez Melero, A. Álvarez-Ossorio, G. Bernard y V. A. Torres González (eds.), Fretum Hispanicum. Nuevas perspectivas sobre la importancia geoestratégica y socioeconómica del Estrecho de Gibraltar durante la Antigüedad, Sevilla, Universidad de Sevilla, 2018, páginas 93-120. ISBN 978-84-472-2841-6
Afri in Hispania, in Africa Hispani: la circulación de tropas a través del Estrecho durante la conquista romana de Hispania2018 •
Fenwick, C.; Wiggins, M. & Wythe, D. (Eds.): TRAC 2007. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (UCL and Birbeck College, University of London), 29 March-1 April 2007), 1-14.
"The use of prehistoric ritual and funerary sites in Roman Spain: discussing tradition, memory and identity in Roman society."2008 •