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The homestead has a clear calling to be isolated and never shares its side walls with other neighbouring dwellings, nor does it abide by street alignments, nor form squares, nor organised areas of collective use. However, total dispersion is not the rule of settlement. Only, in some minority cases, does the homestead appear standing alone in the fields surrounded by its land in large estates. On the other hand, it is more frequently found associated in hamlets known as ''auzo, ''neighbourhood or brotherhood, forming groups of five or ten dwellings that share the ownership of a shall chapel and which are also linked by a set of customary rules that impose cooperation and mutual assistance obligations<ref name="ftn4">Alberto SANTANA. “Los caseríos vizcaínos” in ''Narria''. Núm. 61-62 (1993) pp. 3-4.</ref>.

We have relied on Alberto Santana when considering the origin of the homesteads, and even though this author focuses on those of Gipuzkoa, that data that he provides can be extended to most of the northern territory of the Basque Country. According to Santana, the meaning of "homestead" is ambiguous as it refers to both the economic institution and the building of the dwelling that houses it. If the homestead is interpreted in its broadest economic sense, in other words, as the basic family production cell in a mountain farming society, it can then be said to be an institution of medieval origin that emerged between the 12th and 13th centuries. If, on the other hand, homestead is taken to be a certain type of building, in other words, a architectural model with a specific identity, we would then be talking about a regional formula of a modern farmstead that is no older than half a millennium; an age that none of the rural buildings to be found today in Gipuzkoa would exceed.