Documenting Change in Late Antique Emerita through the Ceramic Evidence

Ceramic materials from a large cross-section of Emerita’s late antique sites offer new details to augment the portrait of the city gleaned from late Roman and Visigothic written sources and architectural remains. The pottery market in late fifth- through seventh-century Emerita did not operate according to the same values that had driven the large-scale importation of goods from abroad in the late Roman period. The evidence shows a substantial decline in fineware imports in the course of the fifth century, but at no point does it indicate a complete loss of trade ties between Emerita and the Mediterranean world. Imported forms manufactured after the end of the fifth century still found their way to the city, though in much lower numbers than in the fourth and fifth centuries. Changing preferences among Hispano-Roman residents, or the arrival of new inhabitants, may have affected demand and production levels, in effect reducing the profitability of large-scale pottery operations. Emerita’s coarseware ceramics also underwent significant changes beginning in the late fifth century, possibly reflecting changing food preparation and consumption practices. All of these changes may be related to the destruction and abandonment of several sections of the city in the middle decades of the fifth century, when barbarian activities severed Hispania from the Roman Empire.