¿Castillos en el aire? Paradigmas interpretativos “de moda” en la arqueología medieval española

Critical analysis of some spanish recent research on early medieval countryside evolution in Spain and the interpretation of the main settlement changes identified by archaeology. The paper discusses some new interpretative models, proposed by spanish scholars in the last few years, that criticize and devalue existing “old” historical schemes, following interpretative European trends, more "fashionable" but, in the author's opinion, inadequate to the spanish archaeological evidence. The author combines archaeological and written evidence on a large number of subjects such as settlements (castles, villages, villas), churches, cemeteries, ceramics and trade.