Valor & Gutiérrez/Archaeology of Medieval Spain, 2. Rural Settlement and Landscape

The chapter begins in the countryside, both far from towns and next to towns. Villages, rural settlement and landscape studies are fairly new fields of archaeological study in Spain, in comparison with the archaeology of cities, the most visible form of evidence of the 12th to 15th centuries. Archaeological studies of rural settlement have become more common in the last twenty years; they include excavations in villages, studies of the environment through analyses of pollen, animal bones and soils, and the use of techniques of landscape archaeology such as interpretation of aerial photographs in order to discover deserted villages and former boundaries, forests and crops. The authors review here archaeological models of Andalusi and Christian rural settlement and landscape, agricultural technology and deserted villages.