Sobre límites y posibilidades de la investigación arqueológica de la arquitectura. De la estratigrafía a un modelo histórico

Abstract

By the beginning of the 1990s, critical readings on late antiquity and early medieval Spanish architecture put into relief avowed contradictions in the generally accepted theories about its genesis and evolution.This crisis suggested me the need to propose a new explanatory model, according to which the architectural revolution brought about by Visigoth architecture would have taken place through the contribution of the new Islamic culture, way into the Middle Ages. This approach prompted me to apply myself to Building Archaeology in order to turn it to the resolution of the problem. A decade after that proposal I intend to present my experience on the usefulness and limitations of Building Archaeology. It has in fact proved useful in order to ensure a renewal of the research interest on this architecture and to obtain a new corpus of data on a more rigorous basis, but it has not been enough to solve the problem in a definite way since, as each and every historical problem, it remains partly open and subject to continued renewal. Using different examples, I will delve on the site/building relationship,wall stratigraphy (building sequence, stratigraphy and style, stratigraphy and intervention, stratigraphy and diagnose), typology and decoration, archaeometry, documentation and absolute chronology.