Fields of Rome. Lusitania, the Mediterranean connectivity, the Roman Empire and the loss of knowledge

Abstract

The Roman province of Lusitania is integrated in the Roman Empire in the end of the first century b.C. (25 a.C. estimated for the foundation of Augusta Emerita, the provincial capital). However, the processes of change began earlier, with the first Mediterranean globalization all along the Ist millenium b.C., due to interactions with the Phoenicians, Greeks and Punics, motivating severe and different answers in the indigenous communities. The process is increased with the contacts and subsequent integration in the Roman Empire, promoting phenomena of hybridizations, assimilations, but also the creation of peripheries or excluded communities. Different regions are integrated with diverse solutions, bringing diversity to the archaeological record and to the material evidence. With the passing of times, we can see changes in the cultural background, where new paradigms appear, and the bringing of new values. The standardization required in the Augustan model of the beginning of the Roman Empire is going to evolve to new stereotypes, changing the knowledge and the sophistication based on the common cultural references horizon (mainly the greek oikouméné). Approaching the end of the Empire, new problems appear, with new communities to integrate, pression on borders, new cultural and religious values, and the progressive loss of comfort and literary knowledge that was the basis of the otium culture. According to the archaeological data or literary references, we try to overview the diversity of processes, with particular attention to the Lusitanian province, but over viewing the major tendencies and material phenomena. And looking at the Roman Empire, we can detect processes of unexpected and paradoxical actuality in our troubled beginning of the XXIst Century.