FORMS OF RURAL OCCUPATION IN THE HIGH PAIVA REGION (5TH-10TH CENTURIES)

This paper presents an approach to the rural settlement of the Upper Paiva, a region that has a mountainous character and therefore was a peripheral area between Douro and Mondego rivers, in the edges of Lamego and Viseu civitates. The archaeological data available for the period between Romanization and Early Middle Ages is the base for this text. The author starts with a sketch of the roman settlement pattern, essential to understand the following periods, becoming visible the importance of the "farm" as the agrarian production unit. Afterwards, the frame of the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages settlement is advanced, by analysing some themes like the possible continuity of part of the disperse settlement and its relation to rock carved graves; some sites that may have been reoccupied for safety reasons and others that may have been created due to the same concern; the existence of some necropolis not carved in rock, that may suggest a spatial reorganisation. Thematic maps accompany this provisional approach.