Rhythms of Settlement Aggregation and Disintegration in Iron Age Bavaria

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ephemeral Aggregated Settlements: Fluidity, Failure or Resilience?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In many parts of Temperate Europe, the first aggregated and fortified urban settlements developed in the Early Iron Age. However, many of these settlements disappeared after a few generations. After a period of decentralization lasting at least two centuries, another episode of settlement aggregation took place in Temperate Europe in the second half of the third and the second century BC. It led to the development of large but unfortified settlements. These sites are often called 'centers of production and distribution'. This process culminated in the development of the fortified oppida during the second half of the second century BC, of which many can be considered urban. Yet again, many of these settlements were abandoned in the first century BC following the Roman Conquest, especially those located in the Eastern parts of Temperate Europe. A database assembling several thousand sites from Iron Age Bavaria in combination with a Geographical Information System permits to study these rhythms of settlement aggregation and disintegration from a broad chronological and geographical perspective. Using this data, the aim of this paper is also to discuss and to question the reasons that have been put forward in the past to explain these processes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Ephemeral Aggregated Settlements: Fluidity, Failure or Resilience?

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23160