The early Castilian peasantry: an archaeological turn?

Notions and interpretations of the peasantry of early medieval Castile evolved significantly during the twentieth century, along the lines of major historiographical changes. After a period largely dominated by the paradigm of legal and institutional history, the incorporation of social and economic approaches in the 1960s gave way to a significant increase in the volume of research and a deeper understanding of the articulation of local communities within the broader framework of early medieval Castilian society. This development was firmly rooted in changing visions of settlement and territorial structures and strongly biased towards social-political, rather than economic issues. This article aims to argue that we are now in the initial phase of a major turn defined by the sudden rise of the archaeology of early medieval peasant settlements. The combination of material culture and environmental date recovered from those sites are quickly forming a substantial body of fresh information to combine with a stable wellknown documentary corpus. These changes are opening the gate to a new, exciting horizon for research in this field, although they also pose a great challenge for both historians and archaeologists, who will need to build a hybrid conceptual space where the hitherto dominant textual information and methodologies can accomodate the increasing impact of archaeology.