Late Antiquity and Early Medieval rural settlements in Catalunya Vella: an archaeological synthesis

Abstract

The aim of this text is the study of the morphological and socioeconomic characteristics of Catalunya Vella rural settlements, mainly those located in the Barcelona and Girona areas, from the sixth to the eleventh century. It is a renewed analysis, due to the data generated in recent years by the intense archaeological activity developed in the framework of both commercial archeology and some university projects. Thus, we now have a rich and diverse archaeological record that, with the assistance of textual sources and toponymy, allows for a meaningful analysis of the evolution of the early medieval rural world. Pickinh up from the precedents of the Late Roman Empire, we propose a general sequence divided into two chronological phases.