ABSTRACT
Nevertheless, the ever more abundant archaeological work that is going on has provided new data, whose interpretation allows us to approach the topic of urban transition from new perspectives. The present paper neither claims nor is able to give an exhaustive exposition of all these perspectives, in part because this would breach the limits foreseen for this study, and in part because such a treatment will be the object of numerous specific papers which will be presented at this very congress, such as those dealing with Valencia, Lorca, Alicante and Cartagena, among others.1 Nor does this paper claim to be a synthesis, given that in the current state of archaeological research, I would run the risk of generalising on the basis of information which is perforce partial and locally specific. What I hope to do, rather, is to present the problem from an archaeological perspective in its twin dimensions: on the one hand, theoretical reflection in the light of the ongoing historiographical debate, and on the other, the analysis of several specific examples of the urban phenomenon in the south-east. Only thus can we re-examine certain historiographical cliches regarding the involution of cities and their role as centres of political and religious power, while, in parallel fashion, taking a new look at certain problems related to the early settlement of Muslim communities.
