Termodinámica del no equilibrio y evolución del poblamiento rural tardoantiguo: reflexiones y casos de estudio de la Bética occidental

Abstract

This contribution aims to analyze comparatively two population realities at different levels to point up their corresponding behaviors: the rural settlements near the city of Osset and those belonging to the Southern countryside of the Guadalquivir river. Starting from this confrontation shall be established differences and similarities between land occupation models in order to link them with historical processes known archaeologically. The documented archaeological sites are conceptulized as dissipating energy gradients units in constant imbalance, due to both energetic input and output are determined by the tendency to entropy according to the second law of thermodynamics. This in turn allows to consider the settlements of the past within a framework of relationships on which acted intergroup selective pressures. The selectionist approach used in this chapter helps us to understand the configuration of Late Antiquity's landscape, as well as its dynamics of change along the centuries of this historical period. As we will see, this model can also be applied to other regions of the Western Baetica. Based on the above information, this chapter is a study about the human settlement of such area from a darwinian and thermodynamic point of view.