Pitch production during the Roman period: an intensive mountain industry for a globalised economy?

Orengo, H�ctor A.; Palet Mart�nez, Josep M.; Ejarque, Ana; Miras, Yannick; Riera-Mora, Santiago

Abstract

The authors’ research project in the Pyrenees mountains has located and excavated Roman kilns for producing pitch from pine resin. Their investigations reveal a whole sustainable industry, integrated into the local environmental cycle, supplying pitch to the Roman network and charcoal as a spin-off to the local iron extractors. The paper makes a strong case for applying combined archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations in upland areas, showing mountain industries to have been not so much marginal and pastoral as key players in the economy of the Roman period and beyond it into the seventh century AD.

Citation

Orengo, H. A., Palet Martínez, J. M., Ejarque, A., Miras, Y., & Riera-Mora, S. (2013). Pitch production during the Roman period: an intensive mountain industry for a globalised economy?. Antiquity, 87(337), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00049474

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Aug 27, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 27, 2013
• Journal: Antiquity
• Print ISSN: 0003-598X
• Electronic ISSN: 1745-1744
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 87
• Issue: 337
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00049474
• Keywords: Pyrenees, mountain, landscape, Roman, antiquity, pitch, tar, pine, resin, charcoal, iron
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1005258
• Publisher URL: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/087/ant0870802.htm
• Related Public URLs: http://antiquity.ac.uk; http://urv.academia.edu/GIAPLandscapeArchaeologyResearchGroup