Villae and Farms: Early Imperial Rural Settlement in the Adaja-Eresma Basin (Central Roman Spain)

Abstract

The information gathered, on the one hand, from the excavations carried out at the Roman villa of Almenara de Adaja-Puras and the archaeological analyses of various samples of sediment, starch and charcoal and, on the other, from the surveys carried out in the surrounding area, in a sector of the interfluve of the Rivers Adaja and Eresma of approximately fifteen km2 , provide new data on the rural occupation model of this particular sector of the territory in the civitas of Cauca. The characteristics of the archaeological finds associated with the deposits demonstrate that the occupation and exploitation of these lands was well established in the second half of the 1st c. AD, although it is very likely that it would have been initiated earlier, judging from the discovery at Almenara-Puras of some early structures and imported pottery, including Italic terra sigillata.