Paisaiaren arkeologia Oma haranean (Kortezubi, Bizkaia)

Over the last three decades, archaeological research has made relevant advances in the study of cultural heritage related to the local societies of the Basque Country. Two aspects, in particular, have provided very interesting results for the study of rural contexts: industrial activity, namely ferrous metallurgy; and individual farmsteads (baserriak), which articulated different economic activities related to agriculture, and husbandry. This work proposes a revision of these works from a landscape perspective, in order to gain new insights into the relationship between social and environmental factors at the local scale. To this purpose, the case of the Oma valley is analysed (Kortezubi, Biscay – Basque Country) through a combination of different sources of information: written, oral, cartographic, archaeological prospection, and geoarchaeology. The results of this work show the potential of this approach for a deeper understanding of the multifunctional socio-environmental systems that shaped cultural landscapes, but also some methodological limits. In any case, the heritage values of these landscapes are evidenced, and new research would be useful to increase the evidence available.