Mirroring Worlds: Rural Domestic Spaces through Multidisciplinarity in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

This book aims to connect the domestic spaces of rural settlements from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages periods with other rural contexts, such as cemeteries or production areas, which were also part of the living and organisational dynamics of the communities that inhabited them.

Across many regions, the materiality of rural settlements, particularly their domestic context, tends to be poorly studied and represented. Furthermore, between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (4th to 12th centuries), the countryside was greatly transformed: changing settlement patterns, trade routes and connections all contributed to the emergence of new modes of living. Mirroring Worlds aims to connect the domestic spaces of rural settlements from these periods with other rural contexts, such as cemeteries or production areas, which were also part of the living and organisational dynamics of the communities that inhabited them. Particularly, it focuses on approaches that study faunal, environmental, spatial or bioarchaeological data arising from funerary contexts, husbandry and crop dynamics, and/or production centres and domestic spaces, with the aim of gaining more knowledge on the associated rural settlements and/or of integrating pre-existing knowledge. Additionally, the contributions present new findings that result from systematic excavations in the broader context of landscape archaeology and that by the use of new technologies (geomagnetic, spectrometers, Lidar, drones, etc.) and archaeometric analyses, provide promising and accurate new data. Topics include human-animal or human-plant interactions, trade and exchange, populational dynamics (such as domestic and industrial spaces related to materiality), paleoenvironment, landscape archaeology, and living conditions, all expressly connected to the rural domestic settlements they represent.

Introduccion Lectura espacial y evolucion temporal de un ambito domestico de la Dehesa de Navalvillar (ss. VII-VIII) - Silvia Berrica La conformacion del territorio castral en la Alpujarra (Granada y Almeria) en la Alta Edad Media - Jorge Rouco Collazo, Jose M Martin Civantos Farming and resilience at the Late Antique hilltop site on Zidani gaber, Slovenia - Vesna Tratnik, Nejc Dolinar Cambios en la cotidianidad de los asentamientos rurales de la Gallaecia de los siglos IV-VI d.C. - Celtia Rodriguez Gonzalez 'Wind of Change'. Funerary landscape transformations in the North-West Iberian Peninsula (5-8th centuries AD): The case of Galicia (Spain) - Laura Blanco-Torrejon Elusive but not forgotten. The rural Mozarab community of Santa Coloma d'Ager (8th to 11th centuries AD) - Julia Olive-Busom, Jesus Brufal, Olalla Lopez-Costas Castro de Guifoes (Northwest Portugal) during Late Antiquity. Perspectives on archaeological and anthracological data recovered in an Archaeological Research Project framework - Andreia Arezes, Catarina Magalhaes Wine and iron. Research of an early medieval hamlet at Przanj near Ljubljana, Slovenia - Dasa Pavlovic El yacimiento emiral de Torrevieja (Cadiz). (Re)definiendo los modelos de ocupacion del medio rural durante los primeros siglos de al-Andalus - Jose Maria Gutierrez Lopez, Ana Mateos-Orozco Constructing peasant landscapes in the Early Middle Ages. Reflections on domestic spaces, funerary areas, and productions systems in western Iberia - Sara Prata, Fabian Cuesta-Gomez,

Introducción

Lectura espacial y evolución temporal de un ámbito doméstico de la Dehesa de Navalvillar (ss. VII-VIII) – Silvia Berrica

La conformación del territorio castral en la Alpujarra (Granada y Almería) en la Alta Edad Media – Jorge Rouco Collazo, José Mª Martín Civantos

Farming and resilience at the Late Antique hilltop site on Zidani gaber, Slovenia – Vesna Tratnik, Nejc Dolinar

Cambios en la cotidianidad de los asentamientos rurales de la Gallaecia de los siglos IV-VI d.C. – Celtia Rodríguez González

‘Wind of Change’. Funerary landscape transformations in the North-West Iberian Peninsula (5-8th centuries AD): The case of Galicia (Spain) – Laura Blanco-Torrejón

Elusive but not forgotten. The rural Mozarab community of Santa Coloma d’Àger (8th to 11th centuries AD) – Júlia Olivé-Busom, Jesús Brufal, Olalla López-Costas

Castro de Guifões (Northwest Portugal) during Late Antiquity. Perspectives on archaeological and anthracological data recovered in an Archaeological Research Project framework – Andreia Arezes, Catarina Magalhães

Wine and iron. Research of an early medieval hamlet at Pržanj near Ljubljana, Slovenia – Daša Pavlovič

El yacimiento emiral de Torrevieja (Cádiz). (Re)definiendo los modelos de ocupación del medio rural durante los primeros siglos de al-Andalus – José María Gutiérrez López, Ana Mateos-Orozco

Constructing peasant landscapes in the Early Middle Ages. Reflections on domestic spaces, funerary areas, and productions systems in western Iberia – Sara Prata, Fabián Cuesta-Gόmez

Silvia Berrica, an Outstanding Cum Laude PhD graduate with International Mention from the University of Alcala (February 2023), received an Extraordinary Doctoral Award in July 2024. Since June 2024, she has been a Postdoctoral researcher at the Escuela Espanola de Historia y Arqueologia en Roma (EEHAR-CSIC), focusing on Late Antique Landscape Archaeology in the Mediterranean. She has been awarded a Postdoctoral Mobility Fellowship at IFAO in Cairo and has secured significant predoctoral grants and participated in archaeological projects across Italy, Spain, and the UK. Her research centres on Rural Landscape Archaeology from the Late Antique and Early Medieval periods. Julia Olive-Busom completed her PhD in Bioarchaeology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in May 2023. Her research scope includes the funerary archaeology and bioarchaeology of Christian and Islamic communities during the Al-Andalus and Mudejar periods, particularly in northeastern Iberia. She has published extensively on funerary practices, paleopathology, and isotopic dietary patterns. Currently, she is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bonn, which has allowed her to broaden her research horizons by conducting innovative bioarchaeological studies in various cemetery areas of the Mongolian Plateau and expanding her focus on Islamic funerary archaeology to Medieval Central Asia.

• Edited by Silvia Berrica
• Edited by Júlia Olivé-Busom