El poblamiento y la explotación del paisaje en la Meseta Norte entre la Edad del Hierro y Época Romana Altoimperial: una aproximación a través de la arqueología espacial

Abstract

Times and places of transition are traditionally researching ways for Historical and Archaeological disciplines. Researchers focus their attention on them for being important themes to understand complex processes. The area studied is located in Spanish North Plateau (Meseta), between the current provinces of Burgos and Palencia. In this area we can find two different and important aspects. First of all, in a geographical way, there are two dialectical spaces, one on the centre of de Cantabric Mountains, and the other on the alluvial plains of Duero basin. Secondly, the historical importance is related to the traditional investigations of preroman borders. Cantabrian peoples, Turmogii and Vaccei were located in this area. Geographical and Historical characteristics had made this zone as an area of conflict. Wars against Astures and Cantabrian began from military bases located in current towns of Sasamón and Herrera de Pisuerga. Other characters, such as the hill-forts were established in the mountains. Nowadays, the role played by pre-roman settlements is still discussed. Our work deals with the study of settlements within two broad chronological groups, the Iron Age and the Early Imperial period; in order to study change processes between different times. We have used GIS tools, especially site catchment analysis to look into subsistence strategies through the time frame related before; this analysis uses a cost surface estimation based on calculi of isochronous. In the same way we used view shed analysis and topographical prominence index in order to probe some hypotheses of differences within settlement patterns. All the data produced have been handled with statistical help.