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Book: Local Experiences of Connectivity and Mobility in the Ancient West-Central Mediterranean

Chapter: 3. Human Mobility between Italy and Northeastern Hispania during the Late Republican Period

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.44205

Blurb:

Mobility and connectivity are core components of archaeological research in the Iberian Peninsula. Two diametrically opposed positions predominate. The first one argues that an important influx of Italians, a ‘migratory flow,’ settled in Hispania after the Second Punic War. The second position minimizes the scale of migratory flows to the Iberian Peninsula. In this chapter, I examine the epigraphic record (2nd-early 1st c. BC) of five Republican cities in northeast Spain as well as numismatic and genetic evidence. I argue that, in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, a large degree of long-distance mobility is inferred when in reality what we see is a limited mobility that sustained a high degree of connectivity. Permanent mobility did exist, but was minimal and concentrated primarily in Tarraco. The chapter shows the importance of studying connectivity and mobility outside the traditional large-scale colonization narratives, paying attention to regional studies and to how local communities experienced immigration.

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