young man troweling dirt at an excavation
Excavation at Cerro Macareno

Andrew Welser: Archaeological Fieldwork in Spain

I am grateful for the department’s travel funding, which enabled me to conduct dissertation research in Andalucía and to use specialist libraries in Madrid as I write my dissertation on peasant labor and the olive oil industry in Roman Iberia.

young man squats in front of four Roman olive oil pots

In the first phase of my summer research, I joined a team from the University of Sevilla in excavating the site of Cerro Macareno, a few miles north of Sevilla. This site is the type site for Pellicer B–C and Pellicer D amphorae, which were used to transport olive oil and other agricultural products from the fifth century BC through the Augustan period in Andalucía. It was tremendously helpful to engage with this rich and influential site in the Guadalquivir River valley. I was also glad to build relationships with faculty and students at the University of Sevilla. 

remains of post holes for olive oil presses
Post-holes from olive presses at the first-century pressing site of Cerro El Lucerio


Afterward, I rented a car and tried to visit and photograph as many Roman olive pressing sites and amphora kilns as I could. Though I was occasionally thwarted by private property rights, rivers, and non-existent access roads, this fieldwork was absolutely critical to my dissertation. Seeing sites in the landscape helped me to better understand the challenges of transport and logistics that had to be overcome in the Roman olive oil industry. I also got the impression that olive production centers may have been built in locations that visually controlled the orchards that supplied them—an observation that has changed my understanding of the
Ibero-Roman olive oil industry. I made sure to take the long way to Madrid from Andalucía in order to see the remarkably well-preserved Roman structures in Mérida, once the capital of Hispania Lusitania. Once in Madrid, I was glad to be able to visit two important libraries: the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut and the Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás of the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales del CSIC. These libraries contain books that are difficult—or nearly impossible—to access in the U.S.


I am very thankful to the departmental fund for supporting this critical stage of my dissertation research