Ager Tarraconensis Field Survey Project
The Ager Tarraconensis archive represents data from a survey conducted between 1985 and 1990 in the territory of Tarragona in Spain. The survey used field-walking techniques to investigate the development of the classical landscape in the hinterland of Tarraco, the Roman provincial capital of Hispania Citerior (Tarraconensis). The survey demonstrated that the analysis of pottery scatters can make a positive contribution to a study of the relationship between Tarragona and its hinterland in antiquity. The evidence showed that the Roman landscape was heavily populated and densely exploited and also showed a predominence of smaller farmsteads over villas. The project was published in 1995 as a Journal of Roman Archaeology supplement.
The methodology used was designed to be systematic, it used two sets of methods. One to analyse distributions of finds so as to identify potential settlement sites in order to facilitate comparisons between periods and two to make inter-site comparisons of field-survey pottery assemblages. The methodolgy was also designed to investigate potential bias caused by field-walking in different environmental conditions such as varied natural light.