La materialidad de lo común: apuntes para una aproximación arqueológica a los comunales en el sur de Europa

The last decades have resulted in a strong renewal of the academic interest of the common lands, even more in a context of revaluation of the rural world and the local scale as alternatives to the globalizing process. A renewal which has motivated different ways for approaching the common lands, including the emergence of an archaeology of the common lands, able to generate very strong narratives on the management and appropriation processes as well as their dismantling through the long duration. In this paper we will present, through three case studies located in southern Europe (the Basque Country, Galicia and Italy), a series of reflections on the potentialities and limits of an archaeological approach to the common lands, pinpointing the capacity of material culture to reveal the multifunctional and multitemporal character of these spaces. Spaces that, as we will argue in the text, will play a central role in the future of current rural societies.