Frontier spaces and Archaeology between Antiquity and Early Middle Ages. The case of Vasconia

Abstract

Forty years ago, the publication by A. Barbero and M. Vigil: On the Social Origins of the Reconquest, signified a shift in the historiographical trends of Hispanic medievalism. Barbero and Vigil –ahead of their time –used archeological materials to make their revolutionary historical propositions. Such materials were extremely scarce at the time, because archeology was not a part of the discourses of medievalism. Today however, thanks to their thought-provoking ideas, Peninsular archeology has advanced significantly, in the technical, methodological, and conceptual levels. The new data generated by Barbero and Vigil’s work has opened new research perspectives. New Roman archeological sites have, as proposed by Barbero and Vigil, proven that the highlands of the North –from the Picos de Europa to the Pyrenees –were integrated into the structures of the Empire, and from their disintegration new situations of marked regional and local character emerged, in which military frontiers, or limes, are not recognizable. However, archeological records do support the existence of border areas in which important kingdoms struggled to reaffirm their authority along the Atlantic Arc. Such authorities were never able to firmly establish their hold and, consequently, they shared the spaces of often superimposed territories. These divergent interests generated conflicts and also relations of collaboration. In this study we explain the formation of one of these border areas; the territory called by some of the sources as Vasconia. This territory is archeologically significant for its necropolis, and not for its castles, as would be expected of border areas.