El sistema portuario de Onoba Aestuaria

Abstract

The thesis entitled “El sistema portuario de Onoba Aestuaria” (The port system of Onoba Aestuaria) is a summary of publications in which appear the discussions and results obtained in various works carried out during my pre-doctoral period. Firstly, there is an article entitled “Portus and stationes along the Southwest Peninsula: Anchorages of the Huelva coast”, published in The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, a journal with an SJR impact rate of 0.920 (Q1). Secondly, there is a work entitled “Phari et Luminaria: sistemas de señalización marítima atlántico-mediterráneos” (Phari et Luminaria: maritime signalling systems of the Atlantic-Mediterranean), which represents a chapter of the book monograph From the Atlantic to the Tyrrhenian. Hispanic and Italian Ports (Campos, J.M. and Bermejo, J. Eds.) published by L’Erma di Bretschneider with an SPI-ICEE impact rate of 3.324 and a position in the publishing ranking of 47 out of 259. And, finally, there is the chapter entitled “El sistema portuario estuarino de Onoba Aestuaria” (The Onoba Estuarine port system), which is included in the book Tarraco Biennal. Actes del 5e Congrés internacional d’Arqueologia i món antic: Ports romans. Arqueología del sistemes portuaris, a monograph published by the Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica with an SPI-ICEE impact rate of 0.417 and a position in the publishing ranking of 196 out of 259. In turn, this thesis is based on an important and consolidated set of studies developed over the last few years by the research group Vrbanitas. Arqueología y Patrimonio de la Universidad de Huelva, related to port themes in ancient times, such as the DeAtlantir Project “Phase I: The Baetica and Lusitanian Atlantic ports and their commercial relationship with Ostia Antica” (HAR2014-58326-P) and “Phase II: The Hispanic ports and heir commercial relationship with Ostia Antica” (HAR2017-89154-P). Likewise, the existence of the Research Plan for the Archaeological Zone of Huelva has provided the necessary scientific context for the new interpretations of some of the sites excavated in Huelva city in recent decades; a revision based substantially on the review of the archaeological materials and the structural remains documented in these interventions. This dynamic, supported by the progress in research on the ancient port world, together with the revisionist process of what is already known about the city of Huelva, has now made it possible to lay the foundations for a better understanding of the gradual Romanisation of the territories of the Iberian Peninsula southwest. It was mainly concerning the political, social, and economic outlook that affected trade, where Onoba Aestuaria would be the Atlantic port which, together with other urban port centres, would act as the driving force of this process in its territory. It is on these bases that a whole theoretical and methodological framework has been established, focused on the setting of a new port network in which Onoba Aestuaria played a leading role in the productive systems of the coastline, and especially of its closest surroundings such as the mouths of the Tinto and Odiel rivers. On this matter, analyses and studies of their visual basins, which are closely related to navigation and their commercial distribution lines, have been carried out. These, together with those carried out from the archaeometry point of view focused on the main transport containers assigned to local production, have made it possible to satisfactorily complete the aims set out in this thesis and to obtain an overview of the port system of Onoba Aestuaria as a wider entity from a fiscal, productive, and commercial point of view for the Roman period.