The rural and suburban landscape of Eio-Iyyuh (Tolmo de Minateda, Hellín, Spain): new methodological approaches to detect and interpret its main generating elements

Abstract

This study analyses the new ways of territorial occupation that appeared in the suburban and rural landscape of the Visigothic city, Eio, later the Islamic madinat of Iyyuh, located without any break in continuity in the current site of El Tolmo de Minateda (Hellín, Albacete). In order to identify and study the main elements that form this landscape (settlements, architecture, productive activities, funerary areas, hydrography or viability), different sources and innovative techniques are used, such as remote sensing (LiDAR, aerial photography), historical cartography, toponymy, the stratigraphic study of agricultural plots, photogrammetry or geophysical prospecting and land surveying. A multidisciplinary approach is used to provide a better understanding of the diachronic relationship between all its components, while at the same time suggesting and identifying its features and fixation in the different historical periods.