ABSTRACT The interaction between human agency and environmental factors is a key topic in the archaeological study of early medieval village formation. Such interactions are particularly visible in the construction and maintenance of agrarian landscapes, which often become central to the local socio-economic development. This article explores these processes in a local context of the western Pyrenees (Navarre, Spain) through a combined analysis of documentary sources, toponymy, field survey, and core sampling for geochemical analysis. The foundations of the local landscape were laid down in the Early Middle Ages, closely related to the establishment of a village settlement and the collective appropriation of agrarian resources. The local geological and soil features, marked by the presence of thick and soft, mineral nutrient-rich soils derived from the weathered volcanic rock substrate, permitted the construction and maintenance of a terraced field system. This fact has been key for later landscape evolution at the local and regional scales, including the formation of a supra-local valley community during the Late Middle Ages, or the deep agrarian and demographic transformations that followed the introduction of New World crops during the Early Modern period.