El objetivo principal de este trabajo es presentar importantes novedades sobre el marco histórico y productivo de la explotación minera de la sierra de Corduba en época romana, así como de la gestión de sus recursos. Desde hace años y a partir de la documentación epigráfica disponible, se ha venido apuntando una posible presencia en este territorio de la societas Sisaponensis y de la explotación de plomo y plata por su parte, a pesar de la afamada vinculación con el beneficio del cinabrio que recoge un conocido pasaje de Plinio. Nuestras investigaciones en el norte de Córdoba y los análisis arqueométricos realizados sobre tres lingotes de plomo recuperados en el paraje de Los Escoriales de Doña Rama, situado en la Sierra de Gata (Belmez-Córdoba), suponen una superación de la frontera del conocimiento sobre los aspectos reseñados, ya que permiten contrastar estas dos hipótesis tradicionales y proponer nuevas cuestiones sobre la explotación de estos parajes y la actividad de esta societas. Estos lingotes fueron encontrados en una instalación minero-metalúrgica romana, algo que es excepcional, y conservan una inscripción, S S, que los vincula sin duda con la societas Sisaponensis.

This paper illustrates the results of research carried out at the archaeological site of Puig Castellar de Biosca (Catalonia, Spain), located in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. This Republican military fortress, a castellum, is exceptional due both to its early chronology, which ranges between 180 and 120 BCE, and to the fact that it acted as a long-lasting military installation situated in a pacified area on the periphery of the Celtiberian conflict zone. Work at the site has uncovered a central building on the top of a hill, which due to its Italian features has been identified as the headquarters of the military fortress. If this interpretation is correct, this might be one of the first examples of a Republican military headquarters building documented to date. It could then be considered a predecessor of later praetoria and principia, which have been recorded in the Numantine camps and on the Roman western limes.

During the excavations carried out since 2017 in the House of the Mithraeum (Casa del Mitreo) in Mérida a collection of paintings was recovered from Room 11, which had been abandoned in the late 3rd c. CE after a fire. The remains included fragments of molded stucco cornices, with braided esparto grass ropes on the reverse that were used to attach them to the ceiling. This article presents the descriptive and technical study of the finds and their compositional analysis using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Data resulting from these analyses allow us to understand the fragments’ composition and technical execution, and even the possible circulation of workshops and raw materials.

This paper analyses the occupation sequence documented in the Roman house of La Fortuna (Cartagena, Spain). We use a contextual approach to study all the material culture documented in the domus. We start with a complete re-documentation of the stratigraphic record, in order to match the finds to their provenance. As a basis for this documentation, we discuss the abandonment typologies and the formation processes documented in the house. Using this framework we make a detailed examination of the artefact assemblages documented and we apply a quantitative study of the production, redistribution and consumption patterns during the different occupation phases. The ultimate objective of this paper is to provide a social and economic reading of the household activities carried out by the successive inhabitants in their own historical context.