Productive strategies and consumption patterns in the Early Medieval village of Gózquez (Madrid, Spain)

Abstract

An overview of the economic profile of the visigothic (6th–8th AD) village of Gózquez, as exemplified by its faunal and botanical record, is presented. The site, located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula, has been one of the first Early Medieval rural sites in Spain to be extensively excavated in the context of preventive/rescue archaeology. Archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data reveal a degree of integration between farming and stockbreeding that calls into question the traditionally wielded paradigm of medieval historiography, in particular the stereotype of precarious settlements (in residential terms) subjected to the limitations imposed by an economy of strict subsistence.