Early medieval landscapes in north-west Spain: local powers and communities, fifth-tenth centuries

Abstract

There has been in the last few years a rapid expansion in the archaeology of early medieval societies in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. A large part of this evidence remains unpublished or has been published incompletely. This article considers the historical landscapes of the north-western Iberian Peninsula in the early medieval period as social constructions, starting with the identification of the systemic relationships between different archaeological entities. The dynamics and articulation of early medieval societies in the Cantabrian area and in the Duero and Tagus basins will be outlined by means of deconstructing their landscapes. To achieve this, a set of variables will be analysed in comparative terms from three regions selected as case studies: Madrid, the Duero basin and the Basque Country. With the aim of explaining these systems diachronically a division between the fifth–eighth and eighth–tenth centuries will be taken into consideration.