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•Reproducible analytical results of a contextualised dataset of more than 150,000 ceramics sherds from Galicia, Spain.•Ceramics imports correlate with historical events: Caesar’s ...campaign, Augustan Cantabrian wars, Flavian reforms.•Sheds new light on the nature, speed and impact on material culture of the Late Iron Age to Roman Empire transition.
How did the first ever exposure to Roman imported material culture at inland sites affect local material culture practices? What does this reveal about the speed and nature of cross-cultural influence between Roman and Iron Age communities? And about the specific dynamics of integration within the Roman Empire of inland sites? Our ability to address these key questions about the exposure of Iron Age communities to the Roman world is hampered by a research bias in classical archaeology towards the study of ceramics contexts from coastal sites. In this paper we present the first replicable quantified contextualised ceramics data analysis to address these questions, through a study of more than 150,000 sherds from inland sites in the northwestern Iberian Peninsula. We conclude that century-long gradual changes in local common wares and amphorae from Iron Age traditions to Roman-inspired forms reflect changing food production and consumption behaviours. This transition is also reflected in an increasing presence of imported Roman goods. Our results suggest very gradual but increasing integration with the Roman world and ceramic data patterns correlate with known events from textual sources: Caesar’s campaign, the Augustan Cantabrian wars, and the Flavian reforms.
Credit-Money in the Roman Economy Harris, William V.
Klio (Leipzig, Germany : 1901),
06/2019, Letnik:
101, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This article, in order to advance the debate about the nature of Roman money, sets out the strongest arguments in favour of the crucial importance of credit-money in the Roman economy (carefully ...distinguishing the use of credit-money from merely buying on credit). It invokes some texts that were not employed in previous discussions. The article also replies to the chief arguments of those scholars who have more or less maintained the traditional view that all, or almost all, Roman money consisted of coins. The most important question here concerns trust and information: to what extent did Romans know enough about those who owed them money to accept payment in documentary form? On this question, the author takes the ‘optimistic’ view.
Las ostras constituyen un aspecto muy poco estudiado de la economía hispanorromana. Se presenta el estudio arqueomalacológico de un depósito inédito de ostras planas (Ostrea edulis) localizado en Los ...Bañales (Uncastillo, Zaragoza), fechado en los últimos momentos de vida de la ciudad romana (época tardoantoniniana-primo severiana). El depósito se ha interpretado como los restos de un banquete privado asociado a una domus por su abundancia (71 NMI) y por su relación con restos de vajilla cerámica, formando parte de un vertedero sobre el acerado (crepido) de uno de los cardines, ya sin mantenimiento en estas fechas. Se reflexiona sobre la importancia de estos hallazgos como símbolo de distinción social y de aemulatio itálica, se discute sobre su procedencia mediterránea o cantábrica, y se realiza una comparativa biométrica con otros hallazgos similares hispanorromanos, especialmente del área del Fretum Gaditanum, de donde procede el único paralelo de convivium similar conocido hasta la fecha (Baelo Claudia). Este trabajo reivindica, asimismo, la necesidad e importancia de los estudios arqueomalacológicos en Hispania para el desarrollo de múltiples aspectos socio-económicos de las sociedades antiguas, actualmente infravalorados
The conventional view of inflation in the Roman world, based on evidence from Roman Egypt, is that prices were steady from the middle of the first century AD until around AD 274, other than a ...doubling of prices between AD 160 and 190. By a quantitative treatment of the data for all available prices, and indicators of prices, this paper shows that this picture is broadly correct for wheat, but that prices for other goods increased throughout the period from AD 160 to 270. This pattern suggests that there were two co-existing market sectors. One for wheat, where prices appear to have been impacted by state action, and another where other commodities were left to find their own market level within a relatively free market.
Excavaciones recientes en el yacimiento arqueológico de la isla del Fraile (Hispania Carthaginensis) han permitido documentar una importante ocupación de época tardoantigua. Entre los restos de un ...almacén del siglo V d. C. se ha identificado un ánfora completa inédita, definida como Isla del Fraile 1. Se trata de un posible contenedor local que pudo estar vinculado a la comercialización de salsas de pescado, una de las principales actividades desarrolladas en este islote del sureste peninsular.
This paper examines the distinctive distribution patterns of Amphore Crétoise (AC) 4 amphoras within Roman trade networks through critical assessment of the morphological attributes of this amphora ...type compared to AC1–3 jars and through consideration of the mechanisms that underlie these patterns. This builds on a growing number of studies that have focused on the design attributes of amphoras as important factors tied to their economic role. It also demonstrates the importance of engaging in more nuanced and detailed investigations that question assumptions about amphora distribution within the Roman world. The AC4 is the primary, and often only, Cretan type found at sites in Rome's northwestern provinces and along the Danube frontier. A narrower profile and smaller capacity appear to have made this amphora type more attractive than other Cretan forms for transport along river and overland routes.
Dacia Mediterranea was established after the division of the first Dacia to the South of the Danube in the 280s. The town of Serdica became the capital of the province while other urban settlements ...in the latter’s territory which are known from the sources were Naissus, Remesiana, Germania, Pautalia and Bargala. In the 530s the town of Bargala had already been relocated to the territory of the neighbouring Macedonia Secunda, while the newly founded Iustiniana Prima was at least initially incorporated within Inner Dacia. In the late third and the fourth century most of the ceramic workshops known to date were situated in or near rural settlements. A second period of archaeologically attested increased activity of the local production centres occurred between the second half of the fifth and the early seventh century, when ceramic manufacture was practised predominantly in urban contexts and less frequently in fortified non-urban sites. For now, there is very little direct information for the local ceramic production of the late fourth and the first half of the fifth century, for which secondary evidence seems to testify. During the period under discussion pottery production in Dacia Mediterranea seems to have been developed predominantly by private entrepreneurs, in both rural and urban contexts. The manufacture of ceramic building material, on the other hand, was in all probability developed by both personal initiative and implemented state programme. The imperial or municipal (?) officinae should be sought within or in the vicinities of the local towns, as both the direct and the secondary data imply. The evidence gathered and analysed suggests that these workshops were often engaged in supplying major or minor construction projects, for example renovation or erection of fortifications, public buildings and Christian churches.
The Making of a Roman Imperial Estate presents excavations
and analysis of material remains at Vagnari, in southeast Italy,
which have facilitated a detailed and precise phasing of a rural
...settlement, both in the late Republican period in the 2nd and 1st
centuries BC, when it was established on land leased from the Roman
state after Rome's conquest of the region, and when it became the
hub (vicus) of a vast agricultural estate owned by the emperor
himself in the early 1st century AD. This research addresses a
range of crucial questions concerning the nature of activity at the
estate and the changes in population in this transitional period.
It also maps the development of the vicus in the 2nd and 3rd
centuries AD, shaping our understanding of the diversity and the
mechanics of the imperial economy and the role of the vicus and its
inhabitants in generating revenues for the emperor. By
contextualising the estate in its landscape and exploring its
economic and social impact on Apulia and beyond, archaeological
research gives us extremely valuable insight into the making of a
Roman imperial estate.
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•There is a need to incorporate studies of Roman peasant settlements in Roman economy debates.•Network science analysis of peasant households’ degree of integration into the Roman ...economy.•Our results demonstrate a certain limited degree of segregation into the interprovincial markets.•Degree of integration stays relatively stable from 1st to 3rd centuries.
Preventive excavations in the metropolitan area of Madrid (Spain) resulted in the study of the archaeological record of a number of Roman non-elite rural sites, which uniquely allow for the analysis of ancient peasant economies in central Roman Spain. We engage with current debates on the economic roles and integration of peasant sites in the Roman imperial economy, and report on the application of a network science method to the economic networks established among these settlements. The Louvain modularity measure is used to explore two competing hypotheses on the level of integration or segregation of peasant communities within the Roman economy. The results suggest a pattern of weak integration that was maintained with little change between the 1st and the 3rd century CE.
Amphorae and jar stoppers found during the 2010–2014 seasons of the Polish–American excavations at Berenike in the Red Sea are found mainly in the early Roman trash dumps, although single finds come ...from all over the ancient city. Altogether 54 stoppers were studied. More than 60% were preserved fragmentarily, some were stamped and colored. As a category they are typical of the Eastern Dessert. Numerous finds come from Myos Hormos and Mons Claudianus, single finds from Mons Porphyrites and Sikait. They reflect Egyptian wine production during the Roman period and in late antiquity. They consist of plug and sealing mixture, made from various materials like plaster and mud, ceramic elements (bowls, lids, roudcuts(?), sherds), natural cork, wood or textile.
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