Transformation: an EU Project The development of villa landscapes Even if Roman villas are found in all northern frontier provinces, live in their traditional villages. Compared with settlements in the rural landscapes were affected by the new Roman settlement type pre-Roman tradition, Roman estates are found comparatively in very different ways. That part of the province of Lower Ger- rarely, and those that there are are confined to the Maas region many in the modern Netherlands offers an example of a land- and the area around Nijmegen. scape in which the majority of the native population continued to The native settlements of the second and third centuries in the Roman villas in the south-east Netherlands Netherlands Good examples of rural landscapes that were transformed by villas Owing to this density, land favourable for settlement on terraces are found in the province of Noricum. Here it is clear that close- or plateaus was exploited, with no exceptions. It is striking that ness to an urban centre was an important factor for those estab- the land immediately behind the frontier saw no major develop- lishing villa estates. The cluster surrounding Salzburg (A), the an- ment of villa estates. The situation in the Tullnerfeld, for example, cient Iuvavum, shows this very well. The pattern occurs around is typical: no evidence of villa estates is found on the level area of the ancient cities of Ovilavis (Wels, A), Virunum (Zollfeld, A) and the Limes zone, which today is intensively farmed. In the hilly Flavia Solva (Wagna, near Leibnitz, A). In the area immediately country further behind the frontier, however, a series of Villae rus- around Iuvavum, farms are situated on average at 3 km intervals. ticae is attested. Roman villas in Noricum The Roman estate at Salzburg-Liefering We can pursue the question of how villa landscapes developed by model were established as early as the first half of the first century looking at the Swiss part of the province of Upper Germany. AD. In the second half of the first century this type of rural settle- Here, the rural settlement pattern was dislocated by the migration ment rapidly spread, and from this time on became the dominant of the Helvetii in the mid-first century BC. After their resettle- feature of the landscape. This form of settlement became even ment by Caesar, the Helvetii only very rarely returned to re-start more densely represented with the foundation of new villas in the life in their old settlements. Instead, estates on the Mediterranean second century. The spread of Villae rusticae in Switzerland up to the mid-first The spread of Villae rusticae in Switzerland in the second half The spread of Villae rusticae in Switzerland in the second cen- century AD of the first century AD. Red: new foundations, black: villas tury AD. Red: new foundations, black: villas already in exist- already in existence ence 11.