In recent decades, Roman archaeology in Iberia, as in other regions, has focused on the investigation of systems of rural settlement in order to elucidate their environmental, geographical and cultural contexts, as well as their chronological development. Most of these studies concern individual landscapes or specific research topics, and so comparative studies offer the opportunity to improve recognition and understanding of both regional particularities and overarching trends. In this monograph, based on his PhD research, Jan Schneider takes three previously surveyed regions on the Mediterranean coast of Spain and its hinterland—the Vera River basin, the Camp de Tarragona and the Upper Almanzora region—in order to investigate Roman settlement patterns between the second century BC and the seventh century AD. He implements a variety of archaeological, geographical and statistical methods facilitated through the use of a geographical information system. It is an approach that is useful for processing large quantities of information, although the significance of the results still depends directly on the quality of the underlying data.

As the author makes use of ‘legacy’ data—that is, sites and surveys previously published by Spanish colleagues—he does not discuss in this volume the methodologies and other details of the original fieldwork, such as the specific areas surveyed or the individual sites and finds discovered. Yet these are all fundamental considerations that provide essential information for any critical evaluation of the reliability of the datasets. As a result, questions about modern land use and the effects of vegetation or building activities on the distributions of archaeological sites, for example, remain unanswered. This omission, however, partially reflects the incomplete information provided in the original survey publications. This makes full critical evaluation of the datasets impossible, although Schneider attempts to address this problem with, for example, tables showing the periods of occupation for each site. He also provides graphs of the diagnostic pottery types grouped into 25-year time spans; in contrast, the analysis and discussion of change over time is based on a chronological framework divided into centuries. In practice, an approach based on periods characterised by specific developments, such as settlement expansion or abandonment, would make it easier to compare between the surveys and facilitate a more nuanced overarching comparison.

For each individual region, Schneider analyses aspects both diachronic (chronological development of settlements, duration of occupation) and synchronic (settlement size, function, status), as well as environmental factors (altitude, aspect, soil quality), distance to cities and communication routes such as roads, rivers and the coastline, access to natural resources and the agricultural potential of land for the cultivation of cereals, olives and vines. In turn, the analyses of the individual regions are then compared. In discussing the many resulting graphs, the author reveals some of the methodological problems of dealing with ‘legacy’ data, and reveals—often unintentionally—the extent to which any such detailed analysis remains dependent on the quality of the original datasets.

It is possible, for example, to discuss the size of surface artefact scatters on a general level, but, without more specific data, it is not feasible to evaluate how site size may have changed over time. Similarly, consideration of the classification, or status, of individual sites is necessarily reliant on the interpretation of the original surveys and therefore uncorrected for differences in the intensity of fieldwork in each region. As a result, the analyses are conducted at the macro scale, and more detailed evaluation of the interconnections between different types of site is not undertaken. This general level of analysis is reflected in the treatment of non-settlement sites, such as cemeteries, which are discussed very briefly and without any further information, and so the volume misses the opportunity to identify the potential cultural particularities of individual regions. Also undiscussed are excavated sites and other areas that have been subject to more intensive investigation, which could provide more detailed information about rural settlement structures, their layout, use and economic potential.

The statistical analysis reveals that geographical factors such as altitude, aspect and soil quality had limited effect on preferred settlement location, whereas the land around most sites was ideally suited for the cultivation of cereals, olives and vines. The long continuity of occupation detected at many sites, particularly in lowland areas, may therefore reflect the sustained agricultural exploitation of the landscape; archaeobotanical and archaeozoological studies could provide important additional information about changes in cultivation practices and economic organisation over time as parts of real interdisciplinary research.

Working with an imperfect dataset, Schneider has succeeded in recognising inter-regional similarities and differences in Roman rural settlement patterns, as well as in reconstructing general chronological developments that correspond with trends across the wider Western Mediterranean. The author presents a wealth of analyses and results, although on the whole, they remain mostly descriptive and generalising. The research aims squarely at the investigation and interregional comparison of settlement histories on the macro level. As a result, the author is able to answer the broad-scale research questions that he sets out to address, but, as much of local detail is left invisible by the chosen scale of analysis, he is unable to draw out further specific aspects of the data. As the author himself emphasises, the outcome of this research, and particularly its comparative approach, should be understood as a methodological evaluation intended to encourage further interregional studies of other parts of the Iberian Peninsula, and beyond, in order to document and explain the diversity of rural landscapes across the Roman world.