Fishing Gear in the North-western Part of the Iberian Peninsula at Roman Times: the Underwater Deposit of Clay Weights in the Moaña Marina (Galicia, Spain)

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Roman building clay constitutes an ideal material for making weights by trimming fragments of tegula, imbrex, and later to an appropriate size and shape, and adding perforations or lateral notches, for suspension. This typology of weights is documented in archaeological sites directly linked to fishing from the Roman and Late Roman times in different regions of the Atlantic-Mediterranean area. However, the knowledge about its presence in underwater archaeological sites is almost unpublished. This original work presents a set of 62 Roman building clay weights recovered from the coastal inlet of the Ría de Vigo (an estuary in Galicia, NW Spain) during an archaeological control and monitoring project carried out in the port of Moaña in 2005.

The archaeological findings from multiple Roman and Late Roman settlements directly related to the exploitation of marine resources in the Ría de Vigo (saltworks, fish-salting factories, and villae a mare) testify to the long fishing tradition of this geographical area.

This paper offers a detailed description of the archaeological work carried out on the Moaña port seabed and its main results, especially those referring to Material Culture. As a result of the 77 dredge operations carried out over an area of 22,850 square meters, a heterogeneous set of materials was recovered, comprising a total of 218 pieces from different historical periods. The largest part consists of ceramic materials of fairly recent date (19th and 20th centuries), with an occasional presence of pieces dated to between the 16th and 18th centuries. A significant part of the deposit (29% of the total) corresponds to Roman ceramic pieces, made up mainly of Roman building clay fragments reused as fishing weights. Nevertheless, some controversy regarding the chronological affiliation and, therefore, the general interpretation of this group of weights, is present since at the time of record two perforated pieces were documented which still had remains of a synthetic line tied to them. The study focuses on the dimension, morphological characteristics and signs of wear of the Roman building clay weights, in order to associate them with nets and fishing gear in the scope of an activity characterized by pragmatism and opportunism, both in Antiquity and today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Paper / Report Submission (2023 General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow