Maria Carme Belarte

Maria Carme Belarte

Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica

Humanities

I am an archaeologist, PhD in Geography and History (1995) for the University of Barcelona. From 1996 to 1998 I was a post-doctoral researcher at the CNRS (UMR 5140 - Lattes, France). From 1999 to 2003 I had postdoctoral positions at the University of Barcelona, with research periods in France. In 2004, I took a position at the ICAC. I joined ICREA in 2006 as a researcher and became an ICREA Research Professor in 2010. I currently lead the Protohistory Archaeology team at the ICAC, where I develop my research. I have conducted fieldwork in Spain, France and Tunisia. I made stays as invited researcher at the Universities of Chicago and Montpellier. In 2013, I received Positive Assessment from the AQU Catalunya (Catalan Evaluation Agency) in order to apply for a university full professor position. Since 2019 I am Academic Supervisor of the Advanced Training Area at the ICAC.


Research interests

The general goal of my research is to study the processes that transformed the Late Bronze Age local-scale groups into the complex societies of the Western Mediterranean Iron Age. My research topics include urbanization, state formation, architecture, funerary practices and rituals. My current research focuses on the study of Iron Age societies through the analysis of domestic space. In 2020 I have started the project Transdisciplinary and experimental study of combustion structures in the western Mediterranean during protohistory. It aims to implement an interdisciplinary methodology to the study of fire installations in the Iron Age Western Mediterranean societies, that integrates specialities such as bioarchaeology or geoarchaeology, as well as experimental archaeology. It is expected that information on daily activities such as diet, fuels, natural resources management or rituals related to fire will be enhanced.

Selected publications

– Sala R, Ortiz H, Sanmartí J, Garcia-Garcia E, Belarte MC, Noguera J, Morer J, Ble E, Pou J, Asensio D & Jornet R 2020, ‘Geophysical survey of the Iberian site (seventh-third centuries bc) of Masies de Sant Miquel (Catalonia, Spain). Interpretative challenges of geophysical data of an Iberian town‘, Archaeological Prospection, 27,2, pp 181-199.

– Noguera J, Sanmartí J, Belarte MC, Sala, R, Morer J, Asensio, Ble E, Jornet R, Revilla V & Pou J 2020, ‘La ciudad ibérica de Masies de Sant Miquel (Banyeres del Penedès, Tarragona) entre los siglos VII-III a. C’. Resultados de una investigación con métodos no invasivos, Archivo Español de Arqueología, 93, pp 35-60.

– Jornet R, Belarte MC, Sanmartí J, Asensio D, Morer J & Noguera J 2020, ‘El Coll del Moro (Gandesa, Tarragona) y su contexto territorial: formación y desarrollo de un asentamiento urbano protohistórico‘, Trabajos de Prehistoria, 77, 1, pp 113-129.

– Sanmartí J, Kallala N, Belarte MC, Ramon J, Cantero FJ, López D, Portillo M & Valenzuela S 2020, ‘Numidian State Formation in the Tunisian High Tell’, Sterr M & Mattingly DJ, Urbanisation and State Formation in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond, Cambridge University Press, pp 438-475.

Belarte MC 2020, ‘Organisation de l’espace domestique et société en Ibérie du Nord (VIIe-IIe s. av. J.-C.)’ in Pomadère M & Bourgois A, La forme de la maison dans l’antiquité. Actes des journées d’étude d’Amiens 19-20 Novembre 2015, Éditions Mergoil, Drémil Lafage, pp 95-110.


Selected research activities

PI: Estudio transdisciplinar y experimental de estructuras de combustión en el Mediterráneo occidental durante la protohistoria (1er milenio a.C.).

PI: Formes d’ocupació del territori i evolució del poblament a la Cessetània occidental durant la protohistòria.

On line Seminar: Estructuras de combustión del 1r mil. aC en el Mediterráneo Occidental: una aproximación transdisciplinar  (UNAM, México).

Academic Supervisor, Advanced Training Area at the ICAC (Classical Archaeology Master).