La parcela doméstica de la casa rural altomedieval (ss. V-XI)

Abstract

The toft is the Cinderella of early medieval farmhouses. Most maintenance and social reproduction activities occurred in this space: harvest processing and storage, animal husbandry, daily chores, manure collection, tool, fodder, and fuel storage, etc. Archaeological characterization of this space was overlooked in convergent conceptual and methodological circumstances and has deprived deprived these dwellings of their context. This paper reviews the informative potential of domestic enclosures by analysing several case studies from inner Iberia, all of which were scrutinized under homogeneous criteria. After addressing the main problems arising from archaeological recognition and analysis of these enclosures, we discuss the research challenges that lie ahead in using these data to generate critical knowledge of early medieval rural society.