Abstract:

GIS-based analysis of Roman field systems has been widely employed during the last years producing relevant results. The increase of planimetric reliability and the capacity of integrating diverse georeferenced sources provided by GIS remains unmatched by other digital systems. However, these previous works have generally relied upon traditional methodologies failing to produce new approaches to the study of Roman landscapes. In order to do so, a wide range of methodologies will be employed in the study of Tarraco’s (modern Tarragona) centuriations. GIS-based archaeomorphological research, multispectral imagery analysis, landscape modelling techniques and visual analysis are some of these. Concretely, viewsheds generation from the auguraculum (the initial spot from which both city and ager were planed) will prove essential in order to investigate the genesis of Tarraco’s centuriated systems. Over reliance on the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum as an analytical source has resulted in the idea of a landscape defined under the Roman land surveyor’s technical criteria. Roman surveying texts interpretations have also promoted the application of rather rigid parameters in these structures morphologic analysis. This paper will try to demonstrate the flexibility and adaptability of the Roman land surveying techniques. Their application, rather than being a rigid one, will allow overcoming the physical environment constrains in developing a truly Roman landscape. However, in this paper we would like to move beyond the practicalities of Roman field surveying applications and explore the concepts and ideas behind the making of a centuriated landscape, of which the city layout was an essential part. We aim to show the centuriation as a land appropriation process in which cultural and religious factors played an essential rôle. Particularly, this landscape appropriation draws its basis in a complex cosmogonical conception related with the foundation rite of Roman colonies. On a more pragmatic level, we will demonstrate Tarraco’s three closest centuriated systems were planned at a single time and they were related to the city layout. This process was surely connected to this city’s acquisition of a Colonial status. GIS techniques will prove invaluable in, not only, the definition and analysis of the centuriation traces, but in the investigation of the concepts and ideas behind the planning of Roman landscapes.