Os chamados castella do Sudoeste: arquitectura, cronología e funções

Abstract

The well known tower-type buildings seem to be a peculiar issue of the Southwest Roman settlement of the Iberian Peninsula, not related at all with pre-Roman architectural traditions. Despite the excavation undertook in some of them, the lack of publication leaves to many unanswered questions. We may say that they were not military buildings, despite the semblance with Castelo da Lousa, Mourão, a true Roman fort, near Guadiana's river; we also know that there's a widespread of this particular settlement type and not the specific concentration on the Castro Verde / Almodovar area. It seems that this peculiar settlement pattern was developed between the second half of the first Century BC and the first half of the first A. D., maybe before the setting of the classical rural farms and uillae.