Site formation processes and urban transformations during Late Antiquity from a high‐resolution geoarchaeological perspective:Baelo Claudia, Spain

Abstract

To understand abandonment processes and secondary uses of public buildings is a key‐challenge to recognize the scope of the urban transformations in Roman cities during Late Antiquity. In this sense, administrative and religious public spaces such as the fora underwent a great variety of transformations resulting in the genesis of a complex stratigraphy of anthropogenic and natural deposits. Baelo Claudia is a well‐known Roman city located in the Atlantic coast of southern Spain. Recent excavations in the forum have provided new data that elucidate Late Roman urban transformations. In this study, we use archaeological soil micromorphology, physico‐chemical analyses and geochemistry to investigate site formation processes and to document nontraditional forms of occupation not visible in the macroscopic archaeological record. This methodology allowed for the distinction of several anthropogenic activities such as glass recycling, reflooring practices, plundering of ornamental marbles, middening of organic and penning residues, together with the progressive decay of earth‐based constructions. The complex superposition of site formation processes seen at Baelo Claudia underlines the role of micromorphology in the identification of behavioral signatures and its relevance in deciphering urban transformation in Late Antiquity.

Neolithic settlement and paleopedological changes during the Middle Holocene in northern Sardinia (Italy)

“…All units are characterized by a rather chaotic sediment composed of sand-size clasts randomly dispersed within a fine fraction of calcitic ash, phytoliths, and humic materials, with complex porosity composed mostly of bioturbation channels and complex packing voids. All these features belong to the typical microstructure of dumped midden-like sediments (Matthews et al, 1997;Shillito et al, 2011;Shillito and Matthews, 2013;Gutiérrez-Rodríguez et al, 2018;Karkanas and Goldberg, 2019;Portillo et al, 2019). The lack of re-organization and horizontal displacement of components also suggests that these sediments did not incur further trampling after the deposition (Miller et al, 2010).…”

“…Moreover, samples from Unit 5 display indicators of crusting, which originated when the deposit remained exposed for some time before the next dumping episode. Increasing evidence suggests that long exposure of the dumped materials and low discarding frequency can be inferred from occasional lenses with different texture and a significant degree of bioturbation, testified by root and faunal channels (Matthews et al, 1997;Shillito and Matthews, 2013;Gutiérrez-Rodríguez et al, 2018;Portillo et al, 2019). In addition, as reported in other contexts (Wieder and Yaalon, 1982;Gutiérrez-Rodríguez et al, 2018), calcite hypocoatings associated with root growth, and by extension calcite dissolution features, are indicative of long-term exposure.…”

Il était une fois des sociétés qui stockaient du carbone en ville : processus de formation et implications sociétales des terres noires urbaines de l’Europe médiévale (Ve−XIe s.).

“…L'étude fine des terres noires et les nouvelles interprétations qui ont pu en être faites grâce à l'apport des géosciences, permettent de remettre en cause cette hypothèse d'un abandon des espaces urbains. En effet, à partir des années 1980, une approche géo-archéologique des terres noires est mise en place en Grande-Bretagne (Macphail, 1981 ;Macphail et Courty, 1985), plus tardivement en France (Cammas et al, 1995) en Belgique (Devos et al, 2009), en Suisse (Asal, 2017) et en Italie (Nicosia, 2006), puis plus récemment encore en Pologne (Krupski et al, 2017), en Espagne (Gutiérrez-Rodríguez et al, 2020), en Allemagne (Zagermann, 2019) et au Danemark (Wouters, 2018 ;Croix et al, 2019) (Fig. 2).…”