Kim Bowes

Excavating the Roman peasant II: excavations at Case Nuove, Cinigiano (GR)

This report details the survey, excavations and materials analysis carried out at Case Nuove (GR) in Tuscany, a site identified by surface survey as a possible rural house, but which excavation and materials analysis suggest was a small-scale agro-processing point of late Republican date. Through accompanying analysis of pollen and land-use data, the article considers the problems this type of site — the stand-alone agro-processing point — presents for interpretations of the Roman landscape.

Palaeoenvironment and land use of Roman peasant farmhouses in southern Tuscany

Archaeo-environmental data were obtained from five small rural sites excavated as part of the Roman Peasant Project in southern Tuscany. Archaeo-botanical and archaeological data point to a moment of intensive land use in the late Republican/Early Imperial date and to possible use of convertible agriculture strategies. The diversity of pasture-grazing plant species, the presence of coprophilous fungi, parasite eggs and the high values of pasture indicator pollen suggest that lands devoted to browsing animals covered an important part of the territory all around and in the vicinity of sites. The significant presence of cereals, with occasional presence of vines and olives, attests to the importance of grain agriculture in the same spaces. These data may be read as residues of convertible agricultural strategies in which pasture, including cultivated fodder, alternated with legumes and cereals. Read together, the data thus point to a major moment of intensified use and management of the land.

EXCAVATING THE ROMAN PEASANT I: EXCAVATIONS AT PIEVINA (GR) 1

Begun in 2009, the Roman Peasant Project was designed to excavate the smallest sites found in field survey and to analyse the diet, economies, land use and landscapes of the Roman peasant. The Project’s excavations at the site of Pievina are presented here, and suggest a more complex image of Roman peasant life in the late Republic and late antiquity than current assumptions would anticipate, including surplus production, a high degree of monetization and ties to urban markets. Iniziato nel 2009, il ‘Roman Peasant Project’ ha lo scopo di scavare i piu piccoli siti trovati in ricognizione e di analizzare la dieta, l’economia, l’uso del terreno e i paesaggi del contadino romano. In questa sede vengono presentati gli scavi del progetto sul sito di Pievina che suggeriscono un’immagine della vita del contadino romano tra il periodo tardo-repubblicano e quello tardo-antico piu complessa di quanto le attuali interpretazioni abbiano anticipato, come il surplus produttivo, un alto grado di monetarizzazione e legami con i mercati urbani.

Villas, Taxes and Trade in Fourth Century Hispania

AbstractMany current models of the Roman economy are predicated on a bleak Late Antiquity, including Hopkins’ “taxes and trade” model. These models have yet to reckon with an uptick in economic matrices in the early 4th. This article addresses one piece of this puzzle, namely, expansion of villa construction in Hispania. The articles argues that this expansion was tied to increased imperial presence and intensified taxation, and produced a band of social opportunism of which villas are the detritus.