The 1st millennium CE represents a period of significant change in the agricultural landscape of southern Italy. Sheep and goats are among the most common faunal remains recovered from archaeological ...excavations of this period, but the contribution of these animals to the agricultural economy (particularly wool production) is often discussed through textual sources. This paper synthesises caprine taxonomic abundance trends using a Bayesian multilevel modelling approach that employs a beta-binomial distribution to address the problems of overdispersion and unequal assemblage/group sizes. Our models contribute directly to the problem by suggesting a period of change in livestock management practices around the 4th and 6th centuries CE, when the region's shift to cereal farming appears to be accompanied by an increase in sheep and goat numbers.
•Trends in the taxonomic abundance of sheep and goats in southern Italy during the first millennium CE.•Bayesian multilevel modelling addresses issues of overdispersion and unequal assemblage sizes.•Consistently high presence of sheep and goat remains throughout the first millennium CE.•Animal husbandry changes between the 4th-6th centuries align with a wool crisis and rise in cereal farming.
Since 2013, the University of Cagliari has been operating in the sector of the Punic-Roman city of Nora, formerly occupied by a Navy base. The investigations allowed to bring to light a sector ...characterized by the presence of a large space paved with andesite blocks and marked by the presence of monumental and decorative structures connected with the use of water. Among these, here is analyzed an exedra structure, whose study and relief is accompanied by a processing of a digital model performed through the use of photogrammetric software. Riassunto: Dal 2013 l’Università di Cagliari opera nel settore della città punico-romana di Nora occupato in passato da una base della Marina Militare. Le indagini hanno permesso di portare alla luce un settore caratterizzato dalla presenza di un ampio spazio pavimentato con basoli di andesite e segnato dalla presenza di strutture monumentali e decorative connesse con l’acqua. Tra queste, ne viene qui analizzata una conformata a esedra, il cui studio e rilievo è corredato da una elaborazione di un modello digitale eseguito attraverso l’uso di software fotogrammetrico.
During two campaigns in 1997 and 1999, archaeologists from Esbjerg Museum excavated a spectacular Late Roman Iron Age weapon burial at Veldbæk in Esbjerg, Denmark. In addition to full weaponry, the ...deceased was buried with magnificent grave goods such as gilded fittings for a military belt, gaming pieces, a gold finger ring, a silver animal fibula, a red carnelian intaglio, and a copper-alloy-clad wooden bucket. The assemblage dates the grave to the transition between periods C1b and C2 of the Late Roman Iron Age, which is to say ca. AD 250 or shortly thereafter. The grave is a crucial new piece in the puzzle to understand how power was distributed in southern Jutland during the Late Roman Iron Age.
During two campaigns in 1997 and 1999, archaeologists from Esbjerg Museum excavated a spectacular Late Roman Iron Age weapon burial at Veldbæk in Esbjerg, Denmark. In addition to full weaponry, the ...deceased was buried with magnificent grave goods such as gilded fittings for a military belt, gaming pieces, a gold finger ring, a silver animal fibula, a red carnelian intaglio, and a copper-alloy-clad wooden bucket. The assemblage dates the grave to the transition between periods C1b and C2 of the Late Roman Iron Age, which is to say ca. AD 250 or shortly thereafter. The grave is a crucial new piece in the puzzle to understand how power was distributed in southern Jutland during the Late Roman Iron Age.
•Archaeobotanical data are used to investigate cereal cultivation practices of the Italian peninsula during the first millennium CE.•Non-parametric multivariate statistics are used to compare ...archaeobotanical samples from northern and southern Italy.•Northern Italy has a wider range of cereals cultivated during the early medieval period than southern Italy.
This study investigates the cereal farming practices of the Italian peninsula during the first millennium CE, with a particular focus on the Early Middle Ages. Using non-parametric multivariate statistics and a dimensionality reduction algorithm (PERMANOVA; nMDS), this research presents and compares 177 archaeobotanical caryopses assemblages from three areas of Italy. The results showed that differences in cereal farming practices between Northern and Southern Italy were not statistically significant during the Roman period, but became significant during the early medieval period. The research suggests that after the collapse of the Roman Empire, northern peasants had more autonomy in selecting their crops, while southern farmers were more resistant to change. These findings challenge the prevailing assumption that early medieval peasants across the entire peninsula uniformly adopted cereal crops like millets and rye. Overall, the study sheds new light on the diversity of cereal farming practices in early medieval Italy and presents a comprehensive collection of cereal macroremains from mainland Italy.
Archaeobotanical analyses (mainly on seeds and fruits – over 1000 l of sieved material with unpublished data) from three urban sites (2nd cent. BC – 2nd cent. AD) provided interesting ethnobotanical ...information about a Roman colony, Mutina (Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy), founded in 183 BC.
In this paper, comparisons are made between productive areas, landfills and one site that shows the evolution of a rich domus. The information obtained concerns the environment in which the town was born and developed, but especially plant-man relationships (food, crafts, green décor etc.) in a thriving Roman colony in Northern Italy.
A good example is provided by analyses carried out in a tank, where the recovery of some archaeozoological finds indicates that it was used for fish farming; this hypothesis is supported by some particular vegetal findings.
The objective of this research is to reconstruct the recent Holocene history of Cupressus sempervirens from the Bronze to the Roman Age in Italy. Our work consisted both in a review of published data ...and in the identification of novel archaeobotanical remains stored in the deposits of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. The literature permitted to collect information linked to different plant remain typologies of the Italian cypress; 362 botanical remains were counted, of which 292 were from the Vesuvian area and 70 from other archaeological sites of the central and western Mediterranean. Data chronology spans from the second century BC to the AD fifth century for the archaeological area of ancient Campania and from the 14th century BC to the AD fourth century for the sites located in different regions. It is clear that the ‘cypress culture’ is confirmed by the archaeobotanical data found in the Roman world. Romans especially appreciated its timber but cypress was also used for many other purposes. Furthermore, the employment of timber for wells was documented in pre-Roman sites and the presence of fruits/seeds in central Italy confirms its importance also in the Bronze Age.
ABSTRACT
Study of the climate in the Mediterranean basin during different historical periods has taken on a particular importance, particularly regarding its role (together with other factors) in the ...evolution of human settlement patterns. Although the Roman age is traditionally considered a period with a favourable climate, recent studies have revealed considerable complexity in terms of regional climate variations. In this paper, we compare the hydrological change from speleothem proxy records with flood reconstructions from archaeological sites for Northern Tuscany (central Italy). We identify a period of oscillating climatic conditions culminating in a multidecadal dry event during the 1st century bc, followed by a century of increased precipitation at the beginning of the Roman Empire and subsequently a return to drier conditions in the 2nd century ad. The period of rainfall increase documented by the speleothems agrees with both the archaeological flood record as well as historical flood data available for the Tiber River, ca. 300 km to the south. These data also suggest a return to wetter conditions following the 3nd and 4rd centuries ad.
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