Received: 30 April 2018 | Revised: 10 January 2019 | Accepted: 12 January 2019 DOI: 10.1002/gea.21730 RESEARCH ARTICLE Reconstructing past terraced agrarian landscapes in the Ebro valley: The deserted village of Torrentejo in the Basque Country, Spain Juan Antonio Quirós-Castillo 1,2 | Cristiano Nicosia 3 1 Department of Geography, Prehistory and Archaeology, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria‐Gasteiz, Spain 2 All Souls College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 3 Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy Correspondence Juan Antonio Quirós-Castillo, Department of Geography, Prehistory and Archaeology, University of the Basque Country, C/ Tomás y Valiente s/n, 01006 Vitoria‐Gasteiz, Spain. Email: quiros.castillo@ehu.eus Scientific editing by Jamie Woodward Abstract The historical agrarian landscape features of the deserted medieval village of Torrentejo (Ebro Valley, southern Basque Country, Rioja Alavesa region) are presented here. This study relies on analyses of agricultural lands on terraces and, secondarily, of domestic occupation, funerary spaces, and of a medieval church. An archaeological excavation was carried out around the church, covering 800 m 2 , and exposing more than 2 m of archaeological deposits. The detailed study of 6 ha of terraced land made use of oral and written sources, historical aerial photos, and fieldwalking survey and mapping of each feature and retaining wall. Trial trenches were studied by means of soil analyses and micromorphology. The integration of buried and surface evidence provided a comprehensive sequence of phases of terrace construction and allowed us to document the progressive expansion of vineyard production. Three main phases within the last 1,300 years were identified and dated using radiocarbon. This paper examines the correlations between terrace fields, landscape history, settlement changes, and agrarian practices. KEYWORDS ancient agriculture, medieval settlements, micromorphology, terraces, vineyards 1 | INTRODUCTION The study of historical agrarian landscapes in southern Europe and the Mediterranean has expanded significantly in recent years. This has led to the development of a form of “agrarian archaeology” based on the analysis of field systems, farming, and husbandry practices as well as on the social study of agrarian economy (e.g., Orejas, 2006; Wilkinson, 2003; Chouquer & Watteaux, 2010; Kirchner, 2010; Klápště, 2016; Quirós-Castillo, 2014; Walsh, 2014). Further, a number of large‐scale rescue archaeological projects have investi- gated the relationships between settlements, agricultural zones, and pasture land over large areas. This has resulted in a new theoretical framework in the study of archaeological rural landscapes (Demoule, 2012; Campana, 2011; Vigil‐Escalera et al., 2014). Studies of common lands (Stagno, 2015), inhabited villages (Fernández‐Fernández, 2013; Fernández Mier & Alonso González, 2016), mountain areas (Harfouche, 2007; Moscatelli & Stagno, 2015; Rendu et al., 2015; Tzortzis & Delestre, 2010), deserted villages (Quirós-Castillo, 2009), and irrigated agrarian systems (Butzer, Mateu, Butzer, & Kraus, 1985; Kirchner, 2009; López & Retamero, 2017; Puy & Balbo, 2013) have added these elements to the history of agricultural landscapes, and have also contributed perspectives on their relationships to forested areas and of pastures. Many of such studies included analysis of agricultural terraces, pluri‐stratified human artifacts well visible in today’s landscapes (Balbo & Puy, 2017). Terracing is an agricultural strategy attested worldwide. Its function is to control erosion, redistribute soil material and water, increase root penetration, and create a less steep slope on which to grow crops (Grove & Rackham, 2001; Woodward, 1995, p. 110; Macklin & Woodward, 2009). The study of the process of terrace construction has enabled analysis of phenomena such as the development of sociopolitical complexity (Morrison, 1994), Geoarchaeology. 2019;1–14. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gea © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1