Shifting landscapes: change and adaptation in the Lusitanian territory during the first globalisation

Abstract

The Roman province of Lusitania was integrated into the Roman Empire at the end of the 1st century BC (25 BC has been estimated as the date of the foundation of Augusta Emerita, the provincial capital). However, processes of integration began earlier, when the first Mediterranean globalisation during the 1st millennium BC led to interaction between the indigenous communities and the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Punics. This eventually caused severe changes within the indigenous communities. These processes were increased through contact with the Romans and Lusitania’s subsequent integration into the Empire, causing the phenomena of hybridisation, assimilation, peripherialisation, and exclusion to occur. Using archaeological data and literary references, I present in this article an overview of the diversity of processes that took place.