Agricultura y minería romanas en el Suroeste Ibérico

Abstract

Throughout the first and second centuries AD. the imperial treasury systematically worked in the ore sulphide deposits of the Iberian Pyrite Belt for the silver and copper production, and these areas were outside of the municipalization and agricultural colonization. Colonization agriculture developed in the countryside and mountain areas to ensure the supply of the mining camps and habitats. After the crisis of the late second century, mine production was reduced to a residual activity for copper, but not to return to silver ores exploited, and this loss of economic value of metal production stimulated the rustic farms of agricultural vocation around the mines, a new phenomenon that could be sponsored by the imperial administration and in which they could participate tenants of the mines and miners settlers.