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| MUR CASTLE AND ITS SPATIAL ORGANIZATION IN 10th-12th CENTURY (Pallars County-Catalonia) | ||
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Marta Sancho i Planas - Universitat de Barcelona - Grup de Recerca d'Arqueologia Medieval i Postmedieval
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| THE TERRITORY EXPERIENCED: DEFENCE, HABITAT AND PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES | ||
Mountain range of el Montsec: General view
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The landscape of this zone is covered by forest and pastures, more than fields that we can find down the valley and in the sunny slopes. |
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The cattle activities do not appear so often in the documents, although we could find some references in the payment of taxes where we could find stock products. The remains dispersed among the territory shows also the existence of this kind of activity: milestones, cattle tracks, stockyards, pastures, watering places… The breeding stock is formed by sheep and pigs, although we cannot forget the fowl and the beehives. |
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The agriculture is based on cereals, vine and olive trees, but also irrigated crops that are related to a hydraulic infrastructure and some fruit trees. The remains that can be identified on the spot and the documents confirm it.
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Cereal field |
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With regard to watermills, we have got very interesting archaeological and documentary information. In 1075 we find the name of a village called Vilamolera in a document. Next to this village we a can find a stony quarry where millwheel were extracted. The negatives of the millwheels can still be identified.
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The remains of extraction activities can still be identified in other places next to castles and inhabited settlements. The flagstones and the other materials, like lime and chalk, were used in the construction of bridges, castles and churches. The iron extraction has to be related to reduction furnace in order to transform it. The iron settlement of Fabregada is documented since 1010. |
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The forest exploitationis a very important activity, not only to obtain wood for the construction, for tools and other objects, but also to obtain calorific energy, such firewood or charcoal, the tar production, the fruits recollection, ... As to communication routes, we have checked the existence of a road network that covers all the territory. This brief summary of the traces remaining allow us to confirm that the production activities carry out in el Montsec, around the first millennium, were of a big variety. The necessity of supplying the population implied such an effort. This example allows us to consider that the medieval rural world present a great variety of production activities, that means that it was not exclusively dedicated to the agriculture as the documentary studies let us suppose.
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| BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOCHACA, M.P. / PORTET, C. / PUIG, R.M. 1991: Mur. Pagès editors. Lleida. Catalunya... 1992: Catalunya Romànica. Vol XV El Pallars. Fundació Enciclopèdia Catalana. Barcelona. MIQUEL ROSELL, F. 1945: Liber Feudorum Maior. Barcelona. NOLASCO, N. 1997: "Aproximació a l'estudi de les comunicacions de la vall de Sant Esteve de la Sarga:anàlisi de les fonts i definició d'una metodologia", in: SANCHO 1997: "Ipsa Fabricata"; estudi de la fargamedieval de Fabregada (S.XI-XIII). Tres anys de recerques arqueològiques (1992-1994). pp. 98-111. Universitat de Barcelona. Barcelona. SANCHO, Marta 1997a: "Ipsa Fabricata": Estudi arqueològic d'un establiment siderúrgic medieval. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona. SANCHO, Marta 1997b: "Organització del territori i processos productius a l'Edat Mitjana: El lloc de Fabregada, l'articulació d'un establiment siderúrgic en un territori de frontera", in: Territori i Societat a l'Edat Mitjana. núm. I, pp. 167-178. Universitat de Lleida. Lleida. SANCHO, M. 1999: Homes, fargues, ferro i foc. Arqueologia i documentació per a l'estudi de la producció de ferro en època medieval. Associació/Col.legi d'enginyers Industrials de Catalunya - Marcombo, 17. Barcelona. SANCHO, M. (2000, en prensa) "Mur, Castell termenat: Estudi històric i arqueològic" in: Intervencions arqueològiques i paleontològiques a les terres de Lleida (1993-2000). Generalitat de Catalunya SANCHO, M. (2001, en prensa): "El castell de Mur" in: Tribuna d'Arqueologia (2000-2001). Generalitat de Catalunya- |
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