Fortificaciones e implantación romana entre La Serena y la Vega del Guadiana: el Castejón de las Merchanas (Don Benito, Badajoz) y su contexto territorial

The Castejon de las Merchanas is a fortified settlement located in the Guadamez valley in the margins of the Serena region (Don Benito, Badajoz, Spain). Its good state of preservation and the monumentality of the visible remains made it worthwhile to develop a thorough recording effort in order to improve our knowledge of the structure, functionality and chronology of the site. The results of this effort are confronted with the knowledge we currently have of the fortifications in a regional framework, analyzing their locational criteria, design, building techniques and archaeological finds. We propose a model of strategic control of the territory and its contextualization in the process of «Romanization» in south-western Spain.