Despoblamiento e identidades locales en la Baja Edad Media. Microhistorias y tendencias a través de la arqueología de los despoblados de Álava (País Vasco)

Abstract

This paper analyses, from an archaeological perspective, the social history of late medieval rural landscapes taking into consideration settlement transformation and abandons. This line of research has a long tradition in all Europe connected to the study of the so-called late medieval crisis. However, in the last few decades this topic has been neglected due to the re-evaluation of the real impact of demographic variations and even the reconsideration of the crisis notion itself. But new archaeological projects carried out in medieval villages in Iberia have allowed to reassess this topic from new perspectives. In this paper changes in local community identities and desertions processes are analysed in the light of settlement patterns transformation observed in Alava (Basque Country, Spain) during the 13th and 15th centuries from a microhistory perspective.