The pre-Roman settlement in the Upper Tagus-Upper Jalón basins

Abstract

This paper analyzes the pre-Roman settlement dynamics in the eastern edge of the Spanish Plateau. Although information is still scarce, the differences in the observed patterns have been explained according to the specific socio-economic contexts in which they were embedded. Hence, issues such as the alleged depopulation of the area in the transition from the 2nd to the 1st millennium BC, or the dual model between undefended low-land sites and fortified up-land locations, can be explained in terms of changes that, throughout the Iron Age, experienced the productive strategies and the configuration of the social groups. In general terms, the perceptible process started with a scattered low-land habitat intended for maximizing economic benefits in the context of a strictly domestic economy. Later, the territorial stabilization of the population led to the emergence of the up-land fortified sites, whose basic function was to “signalize” the territory of specific communities. Finally, demographic increase and the opening of the area towards peripheral territories promoted a process of productive intensification which ultimately fostered the emergence of the first oppida, and with them, an urban-type organization.