INTRODUCTION

This article focuses on the Roman settlement landscapes of the fertile loess soils between current-day Tongres (Belgium) and Cologne (Germany). The commonly presented view regarding these landscapes is that in the course of the later 1st century AD they became almost completely dominated by villa-type settlements, characterized by one or more stone-built structures. In the rare instance that a different type of rural settlement is suggested, it is not quantified, which means that there are at present no estimations of the proportion of villas to other types of rural settlement for this region. With regard to settlement density, an average density of one villa per square kilometre seems to be the general consensus for the overall area. This article aims to challenge these perceptions of the composition of the rural settlement landscape and of habitation density. Based on an extensive inventory, and combining archaeological information with spatial dimensions, a new dataset for these landscapes has been compiled which demonstrates both higher settlement densities and a much higher proportion of ‘post-built’ farms than is commonly thought.

This dataset is the result of a landscape-archaeological study that formed part of the research project ‘Roman villa landscapes in the north. Economy, culture, lifestyles.’ The aim of this study was to reconstruct and analyse the Roman landscapes on the loess soils between the Meuse and Rhine, incorporating the results of more than 150 years of archaeological activity. Although both archaeological inventories and synthesizing work have been done for the Roman landscapes in each of the three countries in the study area, reconstructions of the settlement landscape across national borders have been lacking. An all-encompassing inventory of Roman sites in the study area was therefore carried out, including the process of data categorization, to ensure a homogeneous, reliable result. A GIS was used for the registration, mapping and analysis of data. The results of the inventory, the subsequent reconstruction of the settlement landscape, and the settlement density map will be presented and analysed in this paper. I will put forward the argument that particular archaeological practices, rather than any other factor, are responsible for serious biases in current views on the composition and average settlement density of Roman rural landscapes in the northern provinces, and that it is possible, based on the results of recent investigations, to reconstruct different scenarios.