The 2019 EMCAM edition will take place at Castelo de Vide (Alentejo, Portugal) during May, 2 – 4, 2019 and it will be hosted by the Municipality of Castelo de Vide and the IEM (Instituto de Estudos Medievais). During Thursday and Friday there will be conference presentations, debates and a poster session. The Meeting languages are English, Portuguese and Spanish. During Saturday there will be a study trip to a selection of local early medieval archaeological sites.

This first Meeting takes as a starting point the PRAMCV, a project carried out between 2014 and 2017 about early medieval settlements in the territory of Castelo de Vide. Its findings show evidence of a complex process of re-adaptation throughout the post-roman centuries. The transition between medium roman villas to small scale valley settlements results in severe changes in the management of local resources and economic activities. This new countryside is shaped through a network of intricate small and medium farmsteads in which production scale and focus shifts.

Particular aspects of this early medieval rural landscape –especially the settlements layout; the association between households, productive structures and funerary areas; the building techniques and material culture– have also been documented in other inland territories of the Iberian Peninsula.