Tendencias del uso del suelo en el Valle Amblés (Ávila, España)Del Neolítico al Hierro Inicial

Resumo

This paper shows a preliminary diachronic exploration on agrarian exploitation in the Amblés Valley (Ávila, Central Spain) from the first agrarian communities to Early Iron Age. The study area has both acceptable archaeological knowledge and economic complementarity between the traditionally agrarian capability in the bottom valley and the mountain highlands, with pastoral and forestal potential uses. Site catchment analysis has been carried out on a hundred residential sites, classified according to stylistic material culture criteria. It is intended to evaluate in a quantitative way the agrarian potentiality of the lands in their surrounding catchment areas. Cost-distance models in a Geographic Information System (GIS) have been used to generate isochronic polygons for half-an-hour walk and one-hour walk from each site. These polygons have been used to measure the land extension of soils classified in agrological types. The findings are described through numerical and graphic resumes to offer a preliminary reading on the contrasts over the time, and it is noticed the partiality of their direct interpretation without considering other locational factors. These data are interpreted from the available palaeoeconomic and palaeoenvironmental informations on the archaeological record in this area. In all phases it is clear the tendency to the exploitation of different types of soils, related with the access to a complementary and wide range of resources among these peasant communities. The main changes are noticeable in the beginnings of the Bronze Age and in the Early Iron Age, according with the discontinuities shown in other aspects of the archaeological record, like the material culture or the settlement patterns. It is shown a significant relation between the major importance of the vicinity to the best lands for a primitive agriculture and the driest moments. The soils that require more labour investments in agrarian infrastructures and more complex technologies for their exploitation were of increasing interest for Iron Age communities, in a context of agrarian intensification.