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We
often tackle the territorial problem only with a regressive
analysis. However this reasoning tends to enhance the status
of settlements still seen nowadays as villages or towns. Otherwise,
we think that protohistoric agglomerations were much less
significant if they were deserted during gallo-roman period.
That's why our reasoning is influenced by our visible cultural
heritage. Yet a spatial approach about the dynamic of settlement
systems during the Iron Age underlined a non-linear development
with relative "recession" and "expansion"
periods for each agglomeration. Starting with the fifth century
BC, these compete in establishing their (extractive) settlement
networks, and in developing their land use. We can observe
in a relatively detailed way the intensification of this competition
in the form of symbolic expressions of the networks' growth
through the visibility control, the increasingly massive fortifications
and the increasingly high towers. Extern stimuli, as the Mediterranean
exchanges or the roman colonisation for example, seem to accentuate
this competition and contribute to develop some agglomerations
or to pressurize others. We propose an analysis model which
cross both reasonings, regressive and spatial that would give
a better understanding of the evolution of territorial patterns
during Iron Age and what it brought in our territorial heritage.
Key words: spatial archaeology, territory, Iron Age
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