Hameaux et villages paysans de la période romaine en plaine d’Alsace

The increasing number of excavations carried out over the past twenty years has considerably changed our vision of the countryside in Gaul and Roman Germany: agropastoral activity is not only founded on large Roman-style estates, such as palatial villas. Each region reveals a variety of settlement types, from very large villas to small farms. However, the areas are not inhabited exclusively by isolated settlements. The existence of villages and hamlets in rural areas is now acknowledged in various regions of Gaul and Roman Germany as well as in the British Isles. Research carried out in the plain of Alsace over the past twenty years has led to the discovery of sites that were composed of several agglomerated habitation units that can be described as villages and hamlets. The aim of this paper is to make known these singular rural settlements in the plain of Alsace. The article first presents six recently excavated sites. This section provides the reader with an overview of the characteristics and organisation of these sites, period by period, including plans. The second part of the article presents the different types of remains that make up these sites, sets out the general morphology and explains the evolution of these settlements. The cellars occupy a prominent place and represent between a quarter and a fifth of the total number of remains found at the sites. In this respect they are the key to the detection and analysis of these sites. Without the cellars these sites would remain almost undetectable. The other buildings identified at these five sites are significantly less numerous and are most often wells or furnaces. The foundations of the buildings associated with these cellars have not been identified (except for one site). These were certainly wattle-and-daub constructions, most often built on shallow, unfounded sandpits that were probably destroyed by taphonomic phenomena. In general the buildings in these settlements are still poorly known. Production structures, tools and various indicators that would identify the economic activities carried out at these sites are scarce. However, agropastoral activities seem to play an important role. The third part of the article focuses on the morphology and evolution of the sites. It is not possible to include the remains that make up these sites in the traditional classification schemes used for ancient rural settlements. The concentration of many contemporary cellars or wells within the same site (which