The revision of traditional—and well established—models for interpreting the Roman impact in the western Mediterranean has been the theme of multiple research projects. Their results are discussed in both national and international workshops and congress sessions, and published in volumes that offer a much more detailed picture of both peripheral and less peripheral regions of the Roman world (e.g., Reddé Reference Reddé2017; Haas & Tol Reference de Haas and Tol2017; Bermejo & Grau Reference Bermejo and Grau2022). This volume follows this trend and makes a valuable contribution to the study of Roman impact in the westernmost part of the Iberian Peninsula. As the editors note in the introduction, Lusitania has historically been underrepresented in archaeological literature, especially in English-language historiography. This collective work seeks to give visibility to lesser-known regional contexts and to rethink traditional approaches to Roman rule in these peripheral areas.
The volume is organized into four main sections that cover a broad spectrum of topics, from the dynamics of the Roman conquest to the construction of cultural and religious identities in the western Mediterranean. Each section brings together contributions from researchers with different academic backgrounds and integrates interdisciplinary perspectives and comparative approaches. This collective nature fosters a dialogue between new methodologies and more established historiographical traditions. In this way, rather than adopting a single interpretative stance, the volume reflects the variety of approaches that characterize current research on the Roman presence on the outskirts of the Mediterranean.
The volume addresses some methodological and interpretive questions in the archaeology of the Roman world: how can local and regional perspectives be incorporated into a broader narrative without resorting to centralized and homogenizing models? While the concept of ‘Romanization’ has been widely debated in recent decades (e.g., Mattingly, Reference Mattingly2004), this volume highlights the ongoing tension between interpretations that emphasize transformation driven by Rome (e.g., Ch. 3, Ch. 11) and those that focus on the agency of local communities in shaping the sociopolitical and economic landscape (e.g., Ch. 2, Ch. 5, Ch. 6). In this sense, it aligns with research trends that seek to move beyond the Roman/local dichotomy, and instead explore the processes of economic and cultural adaptation within dynamic and changing landscapes.
The first question addressed in this volume is the interaction between Romans and local communities and how this interaction transformed the socio-political and territorial landscapes of the region. In this first section, entitled Contested Landscapes: Between Pre-Roman Polities and Early Roman Encroachment, João Fonte (Ch. 2) investigates the processes of centralization around hillforts in Callaecia. The author highlights how the interaction between Romans and native communities led to the development of a ‘tribal zone’ structured around oppida. His study analyzes how cultural and political contacts transformed local communities from the 2nd century bc until the conquest by Augustus in 19 bc.
Jesús García Sánchez (Ch. 4) analyzes the social and territorial organization in the north of the Douro basin during the Late Iron Age. The author uses a narrative that integrates multiple dimensions of historical research—territorial, social, historical, and methodological. His chapter explores how the presence of oppida and the scarcity of rural settlements reflect a social hierarchy based on warfare and the control of warrior elites. García Sánchez also examines the interaction between local and Roman communities and highlights how territorial reorganisation and Roman presence transformed the landscape after the Cantabrian Wars (29–19 bc), using the example of the foundation of Roman Segisamo.
The other two chapters in this section share a focus on the adaptation and transformation of the landscape through militarization and territorial control exercised by Rome. Jordi Principal (Ch. 1) analyses how, in northeastern Hispania, military presence evolved according to war tensions and political relations, generating a militarized landscape that evolved into an urban model after the Sertorian War (82–72 bc). Joey Williams, Rui Mataloto and Karilyn Sheldon (Ch. 3) study a ‘mosaic’ of 1st century bc towers in central Alentejo, designed to control routes and resources. Both cases show how military infrastructure facilitated Roman territorial reorganization and shaped the local responses and adaptations.
In the second section, titled Economic targets: integrating and energising resources, the exploitation of the landscape and its impact on landscape transformation are explored. In his chapter, Devi Taelman (Ch. 5) focuses on the use of marble in Lusitania. The author analyzes how the trade of both local and imported marbles became a symbol of prestige for the Roman elites. His study shows how the early phases of urbanization and monumentalization depended on local materials for architectural construction and on white marble for statuary. His analysis highlights the relationship between local quarrying activity and provincial sculptural development. It is evident how Augusta Emerita acted as a mediating centre between Rome and the provincial interior.
In the following chapter, André Carneiro (Ch. 6) examines the dynamics of socioeconomic marginalization and integration in Lusitania, analyzing how contact with the Mediterranean shaped its economic and social landscape. He highlights the coexistence of dispersed urban landscapes and an active rural fabric with multiple villae, as well as the persistence of local cultural identities, visible in the distribution of settlements and religious practices. These identities resulted from prolonged interaction with Mediterranean agents, which generated dynamics of hybridization, assimilation, and exclusion depending on the degree of economic integration of each community.
Finally, Vincenzo Soria (Ch. 7) analyzes the distribution and consumption of imported tableware in Portugal during the 2nd and 1st centuries bc, with a focus on Italic Black Gloss ceramics (IBG). His chapter employs a methodological perspective based on human-object relations to interpret archaeological contexts, an approach directly rooted in symmetrical archaeology. The author demonstrates how imported tableware acquired different meanings depending on its context of use and concludes that the relational analysis of this tableware provides new perspectives on social and economic dynamics in the western Iberian Peninsula on the eve of ‘Romanization’. As a whole, the contributions in this section offer a vision of Lusitania’s economy which shows that integration into the Roman system was by no means a homogeneous process. That is, it depended on different variables such as accessibility of certain resources and the agency of local communities.
In the section Cities and hillforts: settlement organisation in the Roman west, the relationship between urbanism, landscape, and power structures is examined, going beyond the classic dichotomy between ‘countryside’ and ‘city’. Pieter Houten (Ch. 10) analyzes the organization of the civitates in northern Lusitania, and explores the possible existence of the dispersed civitas, in which the territory is organized without a centralized urban core. The author studies classical and epigraphic sources, such as the Alcántara bridge inscription and the texts of Pliny and Ptolemy, and reviews historiographical debates on urbanization in Hispania. His work proposes that some Lusitanian civitates may have been structured into networks of smaller settlements rather than traditional cities.
Victorino Mayoral, Martina Cecilia Parini and Luis Sevillano Perea (Ch. 11), analyze the transformation of the rural landscape in the region of La Serena (Badajoz, Spain) during ‘Romanization’. The study combines archaeological surveys, aerial images, and LiDAR models to reconstruct the settlement patterns and the exploitation of the territory between the Republican period and the beginning of the Empire. They highlight the existence of a fortification network, the consolidation of small agricultural enclaves, and the interaction between local communities and Roman colonial structures in a context of progressive social and territorial change.
In the other two chapters of the section, Miguel Ángel Valero Tévar (Ch. 8) and Cristina Corsi (Ch. 9) offer complementary studies on the relationship between cities and rural territories in Hispania. Valero analyses Ercavica through systematic surveys, showing drastic changes in settlement patterns after the Roman conquest, including the adaptation of oppida and the creation of new settlements linked to agriculture, livestock, and mining. Corsi studies Ammaia (Lusitania), highlighting through multidisciplinary techniques how the suburbium acted as an integrated socio-economic extension of the city, where agricultural, industrial, and funerary activities coexisted, emphasizing the importance of local resources in a context of regional and interregional trade.
The last section, Local religious and cultural identity, explores how the interaction between indigenous communities and Rome manifested itself in the religious sphere and in the configuration of identities. Ignasi Grau Mira (Ch. 12) analyzes sanctuaries as tools of community reaffirmation during the consolidation of Roman power. Grau Mira underlines how sanctuaries became key spaces for negotiating cultural identities, while at the same time integrating indigenous and Roman religious practices, and helping to structure the territory within a changing landscape. Monumentalization and votive offerings were key ritual strategies for shaping collective identity. Examining the site of La Cueva del Valle (Badajoz, Spain), the author stresses that these areas had a religious character and also fulfilled social and political functions, consolidating imperial control while allowing communities to maintain local traditions.
María del Carmen Moreno Escobar (Ch. 14) examines cultural change in the western Sierra Morena through landscape archaeology. Her work explores how settlement patterns reflect the interaction between pre-Roman traditions and Roman influence. The author analyzes the impact of the Roman conquest by considering the evolution of settlement patterns and landscape use. In her chapter, she highlights how transformations in the territory document changes in occupation strategies, economic structures, and social organization. These transformations shaped local communities in a dynamic historical context.
Monica Rolo (Ch. 16) analyzes the funerary practices of Lusitania and their role in the interaction between local and Roman practices. She examines how they reflect processes of cultural negotiation in a context of Roman domination, while maintaining elements of continuity from pre-existing traditions. Rolo stresses that these funerary spaces were symbolic landmarks in the landscape and played a role in the preservation of collective memory and local identities over time. The author highlights that their long-term use reflects both cultural continuity and adaptation to new social and political frameworks under Roman rule.
In the remaining contributions of this section, Thomas Schattner (Ch. 13) explores votive statuary from the sanctuary of Endovellicus. This case study reveals a shift in dedication patterns that reflect changing ritual behaviours under Roman rule. Manuel Fernández-Götz and Marco García Quintela (Ch. 15) examine the oppida of northwest Iberia. They argue that acropoleis were spaces of collective memory, while having religious and political roles. Overall, from the studies in this section it may be derived that religious and cultural landscapes in Lusitania were not reshaped by Rome, but the result of negotiations between local communities and new Roman structures.
To conclude, the volume as a whole stands out for its ability to articulate different scales of analysis that allow the region of present-day Portugal to be placed in the wider context of the western Mediterranean. The methodological diversity and the quality of the case studies provide new perspectives on local adaptation to Roman rule. The volume reflects a growing sensitivity to the interconnectedness between provincial economies and imperial structures. This question is central to many current studies on the economic and social integration of rural territories in the Roman world (e.g., Haas & Tol, Reference de Haas and Tol2017). Such integration was neither a homogeneous process nor unilaterally imposed from the metropolis, but was marked by interdependent relationships that in many cases generated dynamics of social and economic development and, in others, processes of marginalization and dependence (Witcher, Reference Witcher, de Haas and Tol2017). In many cases, this diversity of local responses could be understood also through concepts not directly mentioned in the volume—an inclusion that could have further enriched it—like processes of glocalization in which communities reinterpret elements according to their own dynamics (Cobb, Reference Cobb, Roudometof and Dessi2022), or as a process of cultural resilience (McAnany & Yoffee, Reference McAnany and Yoffee2010) in which local communities adapted in the face of the transformations brought about by the Roman world.
