Estabulación, almacenaje y alimentación durante los siglos IV-III a. C. en el Área 3 de Giribaile

The archaeological excavation campaign carried out during the year 2014 on the plateau of Giribaile had the objectives of a) providing better knowledge of the inner structure of the oppidum and its urban pattern and b) documenting the floor of one house enclosed within Area 3. The archaeological excavation of Area 3 made it possible to characterise a multi-functional structure from fourth and third centuries BCE inside the urban pattern. Carpological, anthropological and soil micromorphology studies as well as phytoliths, pottery and 14C analyses were performed. The study of the urban pattern using orthophotography showed a planned design. The identification of numerous functions related to farming inside Area 3 suppose an important advancement towards the complete understanding of crop and livestock farming in the Iberian culture.

THE RESEARCH PROJECT “EARTHEN ARCHITECTURE IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA: STUDY OF NATURAL, SOCIAL AND ANTHROPIC RISKS AND STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE RESILIENCE (RISK-TERRA)”. OBJECTIVES AND FIRST METHODOLOGY

The Iberian Peninsula possesses extensive earthen monumental and vernacular architectural heritage. The extension of the territory and its heterogeneous geography and climate, variety of available materials, and cultural diversity are the main factors which have brought about the great wealth of both the architecture, urban and rural settings, and the constructive techniques mainly using earth (rammed earth, adobe, half-timber, cob and its variants). However, despite being an essential part of the Iberian culture, this heritage has been greatly abandoned due to changes in ways of life, the depopulation of rural areas, the lack of social recognition, etc. The research project “Risk-Terra – Earthen architecture in the Iberian Peninsula: study of natural, social and anthropic risks and strategies to improve resilience” (ref. RTI2018-095302-B-I00), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (2019–2021) aims to provide a scientific study of natural hazards (floods, landslides, earthquakes, winds, rise of temperatures), social hazards (abandonment, loss of social reputation, demographic pressure, tourism development…) and anthropic hazards (carelessness and negligence, lack of protection and maintenance…), as well as deterioration mechanisms (erosion, loss of materials/parts, collapse…) and transformation dynamics (replacement, use of incompatible techniques and materials…), to which the earthen architecture of the Iberian Peninsula is currently subject. This paper presents the general and specific objectives and the methodology to be used in the project.

Iberian Studies: The Transatlantic Dimension

The emergence of Iberian Studies as a challenge to the paradigm of Hispanism has not only forced a revision of the cultural and linguistic relations within the Iberian Peninsula, but also raised some questions about the significance of the transatlantic dimension in our field. There is no question that, both institutionally and intellectually, most programs of Spanish and Portuguese are grounded on a much touted “community of language,” and that for as long as Peninsular Hispanism, Transatlantic Studies, and Latin Americanism remain bound to the ideology of monolingualism, the close association among literatures of both sides of the Hispanic Atlantic seems secured. But this linguistic grounding is precisely what Iberian Studies needs to deconstruct in order to implement its own epistemological agenda. Iberian Studies, which articulates the need to go beyond Spanish (and Portuguese) to properly understand the internal complexity of Iberian culture(s), may indeed widen the oceanic gap between the two blocks into which our discipline has been traditionally divided. However, the intellectual projects of Iberianism, Transatlanticism, and Latin Americanism —to the extent that they depend on the disruption of Hispanism for a successful production of new knowledge— may benefit from a common institutional location and sustained critical dialogue.

The Lima Indian Letrados: Remaking the República de Indios in the Bourbon Andes

In building its early modern empire across the Atlantic, Spain deployed an army of legal bureaucrats who were rooted in the Iberian culture of letters and inherited Roman law. To rule their possessions in the New World, the Habsburgs attempted a wholesale incorporation of indigenous peoples into a Hispanicized legal culture. They redistributed the native population, introduced new forms of communication, and implemented their notions of justice and social order to counter the authority of kurakas (ethnic lords) in the Andes. Over time, the establishment of Spanish legal and political institutions encouraged new supra-ayllu (community) loyalties among Andeans, while in the newly created reducciones or Indian towns, native literate officials became the immediate brokers between the colonial state and the República de Indios, a colonial reordering of indigenous worlds. Working closely with one another, indigenous escribanos, alcaldes ordinarios, procuradores de cabildo (legal advocates of the Indians’ council), along with interpreters and fiscales de iglesia (overseers of Indian conversion), performed their jobs in local office in both expected and unanticipated ways. They interwove alphabetic literacy with their experience as servants of the state and the church, creating alternative legal practices and interpretations.