Stories of Cabeceiras

Romanization did not have the same effect on all villages. The Archaeological Letter places changes in the second half of the 1st century before Christ: Chacim will have strengthened its centrality, while the small castre of Arco de Baúlhe seems to have lost inhabitants. The text presents an interpretation of traces, not a census of movements.

In Chacim, Mó de Cima’s materials are associated with the occupation and cultivation of nearby lowlands. Later, the description also points to open agricultural establishments, such as the couple identified in Abadim. History is therefore not limited to abandoning the highlands: it involves new centers and different ways of occupying the fields.

The same source relates cultural transformation to sculptures of warriors and honorific inscriptions. They are clues of different natures: one helps to think about social representation, another allows to read signs of Roman practices. When exploring these stories, it is worth asking whenever trace supports each interpretation.

During the Romanization, the villages of the region did not all follow the same path. The Archaeological Letter suggests that the small castro of the Arco de Baúlhe had lost inhabitants, while Chacim gained centrality. It also refers to the expansion of the agricultural occupation to lowlands. This reading helps to imagine a changing territory, but does not provide a certain date for the abandonment of the castro of the Arc.

The Charter situates these changes in the process begun in the second half of the first century before Christ. The transformation was not limited to houses: it also changed the relationship between settlements, fields and centers of power. Chacim appears as a place of population concentration and renewal of spaces, while the Arc is presented as a possible example of emptying.

The Mó de Cima materials in Chacim are used to support the agricultural occupation of the lowlands. Later, the text highlights open facilities of the couple type, such as Abadim. Read together, these clues show a change in the organization of the territory; they do not allow to draw a single displacement of inhabitants between two points, nor date all changes in the same year.