The research objectives are to:
- Record the agricultural use and landscape impact of Roman large-scale field division systems.
- Assess the importance of Iron Age and Roman hydrology control and use.
- Establish the differences between the Iron Age and Roman occupation patterns and how these are related to agricultural practices and the first large-scale management of littoral wetlands.
- Develop and test an integrated multidisciplinary methodological approach for the evaluation of cultural landscapes.
The significance of the project lies in its potential to renew the discipline by providing innovative empirical landscape-based data on Iron Age agricultural practices and by radically altering current thinking on Roman agriculture and landscape uses. It can further contribute to the identification of the extent of the influence of the ancient Roman field systems and Roman littoral wetland management on the modern landscape. This type of information will be particularly useful for the cultural management of modern Mediterranean field systems and coastal areas, enhancing our understanding of their formation and aiding their conservation as cultural heritage sites.
This project has been funded by the University of Nottingham through the award of a Nottingham Advance Research Fellowship to the Principal Investigator.
The Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology awarded a pre-doctoral fellowship to M.J. Ortega to conduct archaeomorphological analysis in the area as part of her PhD research.
The Cartographic Institute of Valencia (ICV) and the Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN) have provided Satellite multiband images, high-resolution aerial imagery, digital cartography and LiDAR-based Digital Terrain Models.
VaLandPro study area is located on the eastern coast of Spain, in the province of Valencia, covering an area of 990 Km2. During the last 20 years intensive survey due to urban development and landscape research has resulted in the collection of an impressive amount of data. The two most important nuclei in the study area are La Carencia, an Ibero-Roman oppidum (5th century BC to 4th century AD), and the Roman city of Valentia (modern València), a Colonia founded in 138 AD next to the Alburefa littoral lagoon and given to the veterans who served under Viriathus.
La Carència has an urban area of about 8ha and it has been identified as the lost Iberian city of Kili / Gili, only known by its monetary production. More than 50 settlements have been located during the last few years that can be associated to this oppidum (Orengo et al. submitted). Regarding Valentia, several studies have identified a centuriated network (Pingarrón 1981) and many villae and other rural settlements in its territory, many of which border the historic limits of the Albufera lagoon (Orengo in press). The proximity of these two nuclei suggests a shared territory, and therefore, an integrated study of the site distribution across the whole area can offer meaningful insights into changing occupation patterns from the Iron Age to the Roman period. The significance of the study area lies in the combination of identified Roman field systems, well-known occupation patterns in both the Iron Age and the Roman period and the presence of the Albufera littoral lagoon, which according to geomorphological analyses was much bigger during the Roman period.
VaLandPro incorporates a series of innovative geospatial technologies in the study of occupation patterns and agricultural exploitation by adopting a multidisciplinary approach:
- The introduction of all Iron Age and Roman sites into a GIS geodatabase has been fundamental, allowing detection of significant clusters of Iron-Age and Roman sites in the area. Extensive archaeological survey aims to assess the reliability of the official site records and to provide further archaeological data.
- Archaeomorphological analysis is essential to reconstruct the Roman communication network and field systems (including the centuriation around Valentia), following previously developed methodological approaches (Orengo and Palet 2010).
- The use of advanced hydrologic modelling has also been significant, permitting the simulation of flooding areas, water accumulation zones and seasonal water level variations in the Albufera littoral lagoon and the major rivers in the study area. To this end, HEC-RAS 4.1 software, developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers has been employed in combination with HEC-GeoRAS 4.3 and ESRI ArcGIS 10.
- In order to perform hydrological analyses it has been necessary to develop a high-resolution topography of the study area prior to the large-scale watershed modifications of the early 1960s. Thus, several 1956 USAF vertical aerial stereophotographs have been employed to reconstruct the ancient topography by means of photogrammetric block triangulation. SPOT 2 high resolution multiband satellite imagery has also been employed to locate moisture accumulation areas and palaeorelief features, which could have influenced the settlement patterns, and exploitation dynamics. LiDAR data has also been used to further detect all these features not visible in multispectral images trough microtopographical analysis.
- Written documentation and ancient map analysis is also a useful resource since it can be used to evaluate the extent of areas prone to flooding prior to the first reservoirs in the 18th century and to provide maximum water inputs for the reconstruction of the ancient hydrologic system.
- Continuous sedimentary records have been cored from the Albufera and Marjal del Moros (a littoral wetland north of Valencia). The multiproxy palaenvironmental analysis of these cores will provide not only the necessary background palaeoevironmental data to test the model but a history of the human impact in the study area that will be compared with the detected archaeological features. Data on ostracods and foraminifera will be employed to assess the salinity levels in the Albufera during the Roman period, allowing the assessment of its possible use for agricultural purposes.
- GIS-based geostatistical analyses will allow construction of hypothesis on the influence of Roman agricultural practices in relation to settling preferences, territory organisation and water management. Particularly important to this will be the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, which will allow linking of Roman settlements to contemporaneous field systems, the littoral lagoon or flooding areas.
- Ground truth test pit excavation of palaeofeatures of archaeological interest will provide dating material and confirm the preliminary typological assessment made by remote sensing.
Results obtained in the study area will be compared with other littoral areas for which good datasets incorporating archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data are available, such as Tarraco (modern Tarragona), Barcino (modern Barcelona) and Emporiae (modern Empuries). This will permit assessing the significance of the data and the local or broader character of the Roman landscape use patterns documented in Valencia.
Books
A. Pitarch, Ll. Alapont & Orengo, H.A. In press (due to be published in 2014). Arqueologia de l’Horta Sud. Torrent, Institut d'Estudis Comarcals de l'Horta Sud.
Articles
Ortega, M.J.; Orengo, H.A. & Palet, J.M. 2013. ‘Análisis arqueomorfológico de la llanura litoral al norte de Valentia. Estructuración territorial y revisión de las tramas centuriadas’ Agri Centuriati. International Journal of Landscape Archaeology, 9 (2012): 59-75.
Orengo, H.A. 2012. 'The Impact of Agricultural Practices and Water Management in the Eastern Spanish Coast during the Iron Age and Roman Periods: Methodological Approaches and First Results' eTopoi. Journal for Ancient Studies, 3: 1007-1014.
Albiach, R., Orengo, H.A., Blasco, J. & Ejarque, A. 2012. La Carència (Valencia, España) y su territorio. Resultados de la aplicación de metodologías digitales. Virtual Archaeology Review, 3 (5):
Chapters
Orengo, H.A.; Ejarque, A. & Albiach, R. 2013. ‘El territorio de la ciudad iberorromana de La Carència: resultados del análisis microrregional del paisaje arqueológico’ in R. Albiach (coord.) L’oppidum de la Carència de Torís i el seu Territori. Serie de Trabajos Varios, 116. Servicio de Investigación Prehistórica. Valencia, Diputación Provincial de Valencia: 281-292.
Forthcoming publications
Orengo, H.A. In press. ‘L'Horta Sud, consideracions per a l’estudi d’un paisatge cultural’ in A. Pitarch, Ll. Alapont & Orengo, H.A. Arqueologia de l’Horta Sud. Torrent, Institut d'Estudis Comarcals de l'Horta Sud.
Orengo, H.A.; Ejarque, A. & Albiach, R. Submitted. ‘Water management and land-use practices from the Iron-Age to the Roman period in Eastern Iberia’ Journal of Archaeological Science.
Orengo, H.A. Forthcoming. 'Digital image analysis of remotely sensed data and the study of ancient Mediterranean landscapes: a critical assessment' Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology.