La villa d’Horta da Torre et l’archéologie du territoire à Fronteira (Portugal): pour une approche super-intensive

Abstract

This paper discusses results and interpretations based on two methodological tools to approach the processes of change during the late empire. The municipality of Fronteira (Portugal) was the object of two phases of field survey: a cartography obtained by systematic results allowed us to draw a picture of intense settlement. However, later, super-intensive approaches have succeeded in detecting smaller sites that provide an even denser picture. In the excavation of the villa of Horta da Torre (Fronteira), rigorous methodologies with more accurate recording protocols have made it possible to identify important post-abandonment occupation phases, documenting processes little known for the territory of Lusitania. Thus, with the evolution of time, new settlement models emerge, reflecting other forms of economic subsistence and resource exploitation, as well as changes in the Empire’s economic organisation system. In the Roman villa of Horta da Torre, recent excavations have demonstrated the existence of rapid cycles of change, with new forms of occupation of the monumental spaces. The possibility that these patterns of intra-site and territory occupation can be transposed to other types of landscape is discussed.