Roman agriculture

Un dels principais recursos de les illes Canaries ha estat la producció de sal. Els vaixells de pesca arrib-aven amb les bodegues carregades de sal o bé I'agafaven de les costes canaries i després anaven a pescar en els bancs de pesca canario-saharians. Peraltra banda, una ...

L’histoire des techniques à l’Antiquité, notamment autour des pratiques et équipements agricoles, connaît dans la recherche francophone une historiographie riche et surtout tumultueuse. Si jusqu’au dernières décennies du XIXe siècle, les techniques antiques sont généralement vantées au détriment de celles du Moyen Âge, la première moitié du XXe siècle marque un renversement des perspectives. En effet, une fracture technique est perçue entre l’Antiquité et les périodes qui suivent, en raison d’un désintérêt des élites pour le progrès et la présence de l’esclavage dans toutes les strates de la société pour certains courants (Aymard 1959 ; Finley 1965), ou par une faiblesse technique, notamment dans les transports, pour d’autres (Lefebvre des Noëttes 1931). Ces schémas dits « primitivistes » se sont largement diffusés, au point de les retrouver encore parfois dans la littérature historique et archéologique du moment, mais sont rediscutés depuis les années 1980 sur la base d’un renouvellement des données archéologiques et d’une lecture plus nuancée de la documentation textuelle dans des travaux de recherche individuels (Amouretti 1986), mais aussi collectifs (Amouretti, Comet 1993), dans le cadre de colloques par exemple (Meeks, Garcia 1997 ; Molin 2008). Depuis quelques années la recherche tente de porter un regard critique sur le débat opposant les « primitivistes » et « modernistes » en retraçant l’historiographie de ces courants (Huitorel 2022), en s’attardant parfois sur l’étude d’un équipement en particulier (Raepsaet 2022). Cette communication reviendra sur les grandes étapes et la construction de la recherche française sur l’histoire des techniques durant l’Antiquité en prenant l’exemple de pratiques et équipements agricoles comme le vallus, et la fumure, et s’interrogera enfin sur la place des travaux actuels dans ces débats.

Depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, des structures de combustion identifiées comme des séchoirs et fumoirs sont régulièrement découvertes dans le nord de la Gaule dans des niveaux datés de l’époque romaine. Toutefois, de nombreuses interrogations persistent sur la forme, le fonctionnement et la fonction de ces installations souvent mal conservées. Afin d’apporter de nouveaux éléments de réflexion et de nouvelles pistes de recherche, un séchoir d’un type dit à canaux en T a été reconstitué en 2016 à l’espace d’aventures archéologiques (parc départemental des Hautes-Bruyères, Villejuif, Val-de-Marne) dans le cadre d’une convention entre l’UMR 7041 ArScAn et le laboratoire d’archéologie du Département du Val-de-Marne. Les premiers tests effectués sur le séchoir permettent de mieux comprendre la circulation des gaz dans l’installation et les phénomènes physico- chimiques qui doivent participer au séchage des denrées par « entraînement ». L’argile, par sa facilité d’accès, sa plasticité et sa bonne inertie thermique est un matériau souvent employé dans la construction des séchoirs, crue pour les murs en torchis ou cuite pour la fabrication d’éléments dans l’aménagement du système interne.

The building analysed is a horreum, with 12 exterior and interior buttresses (0.90 x 0.90 m, with an exception, in the east, where they are 1 x 1 m). The exterior dimensions are 31 x 17.4 m (539.4 m 2). We found no elements of internal partitioning or pillars for the support of the suspended floor, and we considered that the weight of the cereals would have been too heavy for this type of structure (621.60 tons of wheat). The total capacity of the barn will be 70 tons (1 m 3 hays = 60-80 kg). Thus, it could satisfy the yearly hay necessity for 45-46 horses used for public transport. The horreum is placed on a road connecting Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa to Apulum. It is possible that this barn belongs to a mansio or statio.

The unique grave from Poprad-Matejovce, excavated in 2006 and dated to the late 4th century AD, is already well known to the NESAT audience. Preliminary results from the laboratory research of the in situ blocks with organic material lifted from this grave were first presented in Esslingen in 2011. The recovered textiles were then shown on a poster in Hallstatt, in 2014, and at the Liberec conference in 2017, a talk was given about the multicoloured tapestry. The international and multidisciplinary project researching the Poprad grave for 16 years now has been the source for many wonderful and new discoveries. Finally, the project is in its last stage, preparing the results in a manuscript and in a permanent exhibition. The aim of this chapter is to pick up the threads of the previous work and to show the slit tapestry in a completely new light, based on recent findings. This is demonstrated by presenting the new methodology of reconstruction of the tapestry fragments via technological features
as well as via final colour information, including new additional dye and fibre analyses. The intent is to answer essential questions to create a greater picture, namely: how the tapestry was produced, what its motifs tell us, and the purpose for which it was used. A reconstruction of the design of this fabric will be shown for the first time in this chapter.

Se presenta el estudio arqueológico del asentamiento romano de Les Horts Sud (Ibi, Alicante). En este sentido, contamos con la documentación procedente de una excavación de urgencia desarrollada en el año 2006. En este sentido, se incluye
Una descripción de las estructuras y estratos documentados en cada uno de los sondeos practicados vinculándolos a su vez a los resultados de la prospección geofísica llevada a cabo en 2021 en una pequeña parcela adyacente que quedó sin urbanizar. Con todo ello, aportamos una lectura sintética de la forma y secuencia del asentamiento. En
una segunda parte, procedemos al estudio del repertorio material por épocas para
tratar de aproximarnos de forma más detallada a la funcionalidad y cronología del
sitio. Finalmente, enmarcamos el asentamiento en el paisaje rural romano que
caracteriza el interior montañoso del norte de la actual provincia de Alicante.

I begin by assuming that each individual is driven by his or her interests and that each individual creates a mental schema to justify his or her actions. This “rationalization” is a function of his position in the social fabric of the world in which he lives. Augustus’ creation of his empire radically changed the political and economic structure of the society of republican Rome. Augustus concentrated in his person both the political power of the patriarchs and that of the populus Romanus. Rome was no longer the centre of Roman expansionism, but the centre which, as in all empires, was to attract to itself the resources of the vast territories conquered in the final phase of the Republic by both Caesar and Pompey. Columella was torn between the old ideals of the Roman elite and the effort to rationalise agricultural production within the new framework created by Augustan policy.

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of a chapter published in GIS Applications in Roman Landscape and Territory, BAR S3139 edited by Pedro Trapero Fernández and André Carneiro, published by BAR Publishing (Oxford, 2023). This version is free to view and
download for personal use only. It cannot be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher. The full text is available here: https://www.barpublishing.com/gis-applications-in-roman-landscape-and-territory.html

This article presents the preliminary results of a systematic survey conducted within the scope of a Seminar in Archaeological Research during the author's bachelor's degree in History and Archeology at the University of Évora. It is based on the experiences performed in the field of non-invasive archaeological techniques and, therefore, on methodologies applied in the context of a gradual learning curve, which, after completing the degree, it is not yet over. During March and April 2021, an intensive field survey was conducted at the late Roman site of Terrugem, in the Municipality of Elvas (Portugal). The site had been previously excavated during the 1940s and has been abandoned since then, with many questions about its classification and functionality still unanswered. The methodologies applied here were based on those used in other similar contexts, namely in Quinta das Longas, Terlamonte I, and Settefinestre. A grid composed of 377 survey units measuring 50x10 meters was built using GIS and a Garmin handheld GPS. In each unit, all the finds were georeferenced, collected, counted, and weighed. Subsequently, the artifact density index of each unit and the geolocation of each sherd were represented in GIS. This allowed me to build a density map and a functionality map of the collected artifacts. A terrain slope and aspect map were also prepared based on altimetric data captured by a UAV. This map made it possible to verify that the largest patch of artifact concentration tends to follow the natural slope of the terrain. These survey methods were also complemented with remote sensing techniques such as aerial photogrammetry, vegetation indexes computation, and thermography besides the analysis of historical photography (both aerial and terrestrial).

Landscape archaeology came about as one sector of the archaeological discipline aimed predominantly at university research, with vital, major repercussions for advanced teaching. All this occurred at a time, between the 1970s and the 1980s, when the archaeology conducted outdoors (mainly excavations) ceased to be regarded as a mere supplement to the archaeology taught in lecture rooms, and was transformed into an open-air laboratory, with a direct connection to teaching that relied on “the spoken teaching”. It is no coincidence that theoretical and methodological teaching, with science-based content, rapidly took shape from this interaction, such as geo-archaeology, bioarchaeology, and archaeometry, which are making important contributions to landscape archaeology. For that matter, this archaeology is, by definition, an open discipline, in its approaches, in its recourse to various different kinds of sources, and in its relationship with other forms of knowledge.

The paper aims to resume the archaeological researches carried out by the University of Siena in the countryside of Brindisi (Apulia) between 1991 and 1994. Particular emphasis is placed on the model of agricultural
management represented by the property of Visellius situated near Giancola. Certainly the production of oil was also found in the Messapians landscape, but there is no doubt that there was a sharp acceleration after the first stage of the Roman conquest, in the second century BC. The model of a residential villa seems to be still the one described by Cato in De agri cultura: a villa rustica placed in the middle of a medium-large property.
The model of agrarian management, however, seems decidedly more sophisticated. It is closer to the plantation linked to the villa perfecta of Varrone, characterized by a very advanced capitalistic-commercial sector. Maybe it was the extreme sophistication of this system to determine early crisis and the shift to more extensive forms of management, which predict the formation of large estates. The fundus of Visellius represents at the same time the extraordinary ability of the Roman possessores to realize a capitalist agriculture even in regions very far from the Urbe and the weakness of the too advanced economic formations.

Global agro-biodiversity has resulted from processes of plant migration and agricultural adoption. Although critically affecting current diversity, crop diffusion from antiquity to the middle-ages is poorly researched, overshadowed by studies on that of prehistoric periods. A new archaeobotanical dataset from three Negev Highland desert sites demonstrates the first millennium CE’s significance for long-term agricultural change in southwest Asia. This enables evaluation of the “Islamic Green Revolution” (IGR) thesis compared to “Roman Agricultural Diffusion” (RAD), and both versus crop diffusion since the Neolithic. Among the finds, some of the earliestSolanum melongenaseeds in the Levant represent the proposed IGR. Several other identified economic plants, including two unprecedented in Levantine archaeobotany (Ziziphus jujuba, Lupinus albus), implicate RAD as the greater force for crop migrations. Altogether the evidence supports a gradualist model for Holocene-wide crop diffusion,...

NLY TWO Latin agricultural writers appear among the forty­ four authorities named in the Greek Geoponica: the 'Roman' Varro and the poet Virgil. Varro's Rerum rusticarum libri and Virgil's Georgics had found a secure position in the tradition of agri­ cultural literature by the first century. Columella includes both in the

Durante largo tiempo se ha discutido sobre la cuestión de la producción de vino en el Imperio romano y se han propuesto modelos diversos que, de un modo general, se explican a partir del sistema de grandes uillae. Dedicadas al monocultivo del vino destinado al consumo de grandes centros, eran explotadas en un sistema esclavista. El objetivo de esta obra es aportar una nueva perspectiva sobre la producción de vino en el contexto romano y entender qué tipo de estructuras organizativas hacían posible el abasto de dicho producto en los mercados. A través del análisis sincrónico y diacrónico de la región noreste de Hispania, se desarrollan y se proponen modelos de producción especializada. El resultado es la actualización de un estudio que, en ocasiones, se había simplificado y que aquí se muestra en toda su complejidad.

Date de l'opération : 1998 (SU) Inventeur(s) : Garnotel Alexandrine (AFAN) ; Colomer Guilhem (AFAN) ; Boudry Olivier (AFAN) ; Fernandez Jérôme (AFAN) ; Escallon Gilles ; Jallot Luc Dans la plaine languedocienne, à l'est de Montpellier, le lieu-dit Claunepère se trouve à deux kilomètres au sud-est du centre médiéval de Mauguio, dans un secteur rural en cours d'urbanisation. Différentes traces d'occupation humaine s'y répartissent du Chalcolithique au haut Moyen Âge sur environ mille mètres car..

Durant els darrers anys, un seguit d’intervencions arqueològiques han tret a la llum un sector –densa- ment ocupat– del conegut suburbium del Francolí de l’antiga Tàrraco. A més del gran volum de restes exhumades, també en destaca la cronologia, ja que s’han identificat una sèrie de fases ocupacionals, que van des del període tardorepublicà (segle i aC) fins a l’antiguitat tardana (segles vii-viii dC

The late Roman Republic witnessed the consolidation of power in the hands of individual aristocrats. Simultaneously, wealthy Roman elites increasingly conveyed social status through domestic spectacle-that is, the decoration, aesthetics, and entertainment functions within their homes and villas. These two developments were explicitly linked. As traditional paths to power became less accessible, Roman elites frequently enhanced their power through alternative means. Domestic spectacle offered potent opportunities both for solidifying electoral support and for forming, and maintaining, political relationships. Using L. Licinius Lucullus (cos. 74 BCE) as a case study, this paper traces how private display and conspicuous consumption became integral to elite identity, offering complementary paths to power that ultimately broadened access to political authority.

This report details the survey, excavations and materials analysis carried out at Case Nuove (GR) in Tuscany, a site identified by surface survey as a possible rural house, but which excavation and materials analysis suggest was a small-scale agro-processing point of late Republican date. Through accompanying analysis of pollen and land-use data, the article considers the problems this type of site — the stand-alone agro-processing point — presents for interpretations of the Roman landscape.

This report details the survey, excavations and materials analysis carried out at Case Nuove (GR) in Tuscany, a site identified by surface survey as a possible rural house, but which excavation and materials analysis suggest was a small-scale agro-processing point of late Republican date. Through accompanying analysis of pollen and land-use data, the article considers the problems this type of site — the stand-alone agro-processing point — presents for interpretations of the Roman landscape.

Resumo:Este estudo centra-se na investigacao dos vestigios arqueologicos existentes no Monte do Mascarro e contextualizacao do mesmo no concelho de Castelo de Vide, territorio do Norte Alentejo.Existem alguns sitios ja identificados e intervencionados no concelho que fariam parte de uma rede de povoamento rural sobre a qual ainda muito falta saber.O principal objetivo e relacionar os vestigios do Mascarro no povoamento antigo e com outros locais de cronologias semelhantes no atual territorio do concelho de Castelo de Vide e da civitas de Ammaia. A maioria destes sitios aparenta estar relacionados com as atividades agricolas e com a exploracao dos recursos do fundus.   Abstract:This study focuses on the research of existing archaeological remains on Mount Mascarro and contextualization of the same in Castelo de Vide municipality, territory of Northern Alentejo.There are some already identified sites and intervened in the county that would be part of a rural settlement network on whic...

II Congresso Internacional de Direitos Animais: Salve a Amazônia, os Animais e o Planeta

Após o sucesso de 2022, com centenas de ouvintes, 30 palestrantes e 20 horas de discussões ao vivo, é com muita satisfação que o Centro de Estudos sobre Animais e o Antropoceno - CEAA, dirigido pelas advogadas e pesquisadoras Giseli Laguardia Cheim e Anna Caramuru Aubert , anuncia a abertura de inscrições para o seu II Congresso Internacional de Direitos Animais: “Salve a Amazônia, os animais e o planeta”, interdisciplinar e interseccional.

*Anna Caramuru Aubert entrevistou Peter Singer e Melanie Joy

The saying in Matthew 9.37–8 and Luke (Q) 10.2 reads as follows: ‘He said to his disciples: The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to dispatch workers into his harvest’. The present study attempts to illuminate this logion by considering its setting in first-century Palestine. The focus here is not on the logion's possible metaphorical application, but on the literal saying, which involves ancient agriculture.

O presente artigo enumera as limitações da investigação e as
questões em aberto, relativamente ao estudo da integração do porto de Olisipo (Lisboa) nas redes de comércio marítimo romano, estabelecidas entre o Atlântico e o Mediterrâneo, apresentando de forma sucinta o actual estado da arte.

In the framework of archaeological surveys conducted in 2002-3 for the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria around the Via Flaminia, the Società Cooperativa Kronos discovered the site known as the “Villa of Rufio” (the name comes from an inscription dedicated to Caius Iulius Rufio). After 4 excavation campaigns (2003-6) the monumental character of a large villa was established, and in 2007 a team from the University of Alicante led by the first-named author began fieldwork, focusing on the analysis of agricultural and commercial production patterns through an examination of the type of manpower in use during the Augustan era. The site lies in the village of Giano dell'Umbria (Perugia), in the foothills of Gualdo Cataneo-Montefalco of southern Umbria (fig. 1). To the north is the Roman town of Mevania (Bevagna), to the south the Martani mountains, at the foot of which lies Mansio Ad Martis (Massa Martana).