The conceptual and material transformation of the villa in Aquitanica Prima from the third to seventh centuries A.D

After a brief survey of the changing definitions of Aquitanica I itself, the conceptual evolution of the 'villa' will be examined; and since a reliance upon toponymy to locate late Roman and early Merovingian estates is central to the debate surrounding their nature and composition, a detailed analysis of its limitations will follow. In the process, several common generalisations about this period will be tested for eastern Aquitaine: the extent of depopulation, land abandonment, Germanic settlements, and the change from a pattern of dispersed to nucleated settlements, from Roman farmsteads to mediaeval agricultural villages, Finally, a brief summary of the 'archaeology' of the late Roman villa in eastern Aquitaine will be compared with that of its Merovingian counterpart; and the overwhelming conclusion reached, that the problem Is due to past shortcomings in archaeological retrieval rather than the transformation of the villa into village, which is probably a late rather than early Merovingian process, and which certainly cannot be demonstrated for late Roman central Gaul