The creation of a farm, in a watershed of some 200 hectares, is one of the tangible signs of the founding of an estate that overlapped with one of the largest land units in the Loupian area. These lands, which were clearly farmed since protohistory for the benefit of the nearby settlement of Mesua, may have been where the first arrivals set up, with the constitution of fields and a parcel structure for new agricultural practices.
The farm, which is in a poor state of preservation due to later reconstructions, appears to have been a simple structure measuring some 1,500 sq. metres. It did not make use of stone, but rather featured lightweight constructions of earth and wood. The installation of storage areas used the same simple techniques, with underground storage areas and a granary built on poles. Ditches delimited the occupied area, thus providing a framework for the rather careless organisation of the buildings. We see in this the outlines of a enclosed farm, a rural establishment typical of northern Gaul, but which is increasingly being discovered in the Romanised south. Possibly occupied by the Roman equivalent of serfs, it served as a base of operations for the cultivation of extensive swaths of farmland, for one of the large estates created by the Gallic upper class favoured by the new Roman authorities.
