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This edited volume presents a synthesis of recent research on villas and villa landscapes in the northern provinces of the Roman world. It offers an original, multi-dimensional perspective on the social, economic and cultural functioning of villas within the context of the Roman empire. Themes discussed include the economic basis of villa dominated landscapes, rural slavery, town-country dynamics, the role of monumental burials in villa landscapes, and self-representation and lifestyle of villa owners. This study offers a major contribution to the comparative research of villa landscapes and the phenomenon of regionality in Roman rural landscapes.Amsterdam Archaeological Studies is a series devoted to the study of past human societies from the prehistory up into modern times, primarily based on the study of archaeological remains. The series will include excavation reports of modern fieldwork; studies of categories of material culture; and synthesising studies with broader images of past societies, thereby contributing to the theoretical and methodological debates in archaeology.

This edited volume presents a synthesis of recent research on villas and villa landscapes in the northern provinces of the Roman world. It offers an original, multi-dimensional perspective on the social, economic and cultural functioning of villas within the context of the Roman empire. Themes discussed include the economic basis of villa dominated landscapes, rural slavery, town-country dynamics, the role of monumental burials in villa landscapes, and self-representation and lifestyle of villa owners. This study offers a major contribution to the comparative research of villa landscapes and the phenomenon of regionality in Roman rural landscapes.Amsterdam Archaeological Studies is a series devoted to the study of past human societies from the prehistory up into modern times, primarily based on the study of archaeological remains. The series will include excavation reports of modern fieldwork; studies of categories of material culture; and synthesising studies with broader images of past societies, thereby contributing to the theoretical and methodological debates in archaeology.

This volume explores the theme of ethnicity and ethnogenesis in societies of the ancient world. Its starting point is the current view in the social and historical sciences of ethnicity as a subjective construct that is shaped through interaction with an ethnic 'other'. The 13 essays collected in this volume are based on the analysis of historical, epigraphic and archaeological source material and thematically range from Archaic Greece to Early Mediaeval Western Europe. Despite frequent claims by ethnic groups to the contrary, all ethnic formations are intrinsically unstable and dynamic over time. Much of this dynamism is to be understood in close association with conflict, violence and changing constellations of power. The explicit theoretical framework, together with the wide range of case-studies makes this volume indispensable for historians, archaeologists and social scientists with an interest in the ancient world. Uit dertien casestudies - van gebieden uiteenlopend van het Archaïsch Griekenland tot het vroegmiddeleeuws West-Europa - blijkt dat etnische identiteiten verbonden zijn met een traditiedragende kern in de samenleving, maar tegelijk onderhevig zijn aan een dynamiek die vaak bepaald wordt door veranderende machtsconfiguraties. Eerder verschenen titels in de Amsterdam Archaeological Studies en meer informatie over de serie kunt u \"http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_booklist&b=series&series=1\">hier vinden.

This paper studies rural populations in the Roman frontier province of Germania inferior, employing a perspective that allocates more space to the exploitative and repressive aspects of Roman rule. We draw attention to an alternative series of topics than the ones currently presented in rural archaeology. This includes attention to situations of crisis and instability, to fundamental reordering of rural populations, to issues of migration and to the interconnectivity of rural developments and imperial power structures. While these topics are usually considered as ‘historically given’, they are rarely the subject of serious archaeological research. This attempt at a more historicising approach does not mean a simple return to the traditional paradigm of historische Altertumskunde. Much better equipped than our predecessors of two or three generations ago, we archaeologists of the 21st century are able to engage in a critical and creative dialogue with historical sources and models.

The impact of empires on their colonial subjects is manifold and often reaches far beyond the visible material conditions of life that are the focus of much archaeological research.¹ Colonisers usually take control not just of the conquered land and its natural resources, but also of the people who inhabit it. Thus distinctions are made between those who control the land and those who occupy and work it. As Loren observes in a recent study on the impact of French and Spanish colonial rule in the 17th- and 18th-century American Southeast, the very demarcation and classification of the colonised constitutes

In the western half of the Roman empire, the foundation of towns and the introduction of a system of civic self-administration constitute the most important changes of the Roman era, alongside the rise of villas. 1 The precise organisation of the new administration differed from civitas to civitas as in most cases it was partly built upon existing indigenous structures. However, as a result of a process of political integration, referred to in the recent literature as 'municipalisation', 2 the institutional organisation of the local communities developed along much the same lines and finally became fairly uniform across the Gallic and Germanic provinces. Everywhere the old tribal senate of elders was transformed into a Roman-style city council, variously referred to as senatus, curia or, most often, ordo decurionum. 3 The tribal pagus lost its political autonomy and was subordinated to the civitas, its significance in the Roman period being largely restricted to the religious domain. 4 And single magisterial positions rooted in local tradition, such as the vergobretus and praetor in Central Gaul or the summus magistratus among the Batavi, 5 quickly disappeared and were replaced by the archetypical collegial pairs of duumviri, aediles and quaestores. It is these municipal magistrates, together with the members of the city council with whom they were closely connected, which are the focus of this paper. They are referred to here as the 'ruling elite'. Who were these men? How many of them were there? What evidence do we have to substantiate the general claim that they may be identified with the wealthy owners of the greatest and most luxurious villas in the countryside? How much of their time did they have to spend on exercising their political power? How did they manage to run an agrarian enterprise and at the same time be politically active in town? Should we imagine them constantly commuting between their estate in the countryside and the political arena in the town? Or were they absentee landlords who, like their peers in Italy, lived in town and relied on a bailiff? And where in the end did their loyalties and sympathies most lie - with the town or the countryside? These and other questions spring to mind when trying to conceptualise the social and political relations that tied the Roman villa world to that of the town.