A new analysis of one of the graves (No. 177) at the burial ground of the Przeworsk culture in Drochlin, Częstochowa District, dated to the C1a phase of the Younger Roman Period, allows us to ...participate in a discussion about the position of horseman warriors in the milieu of the Przeworsk culture. The preserved grave goods from Drochlin suggest that the buried horseman can be considered a representative of the local elite. The iron spurs decorated with brass, bow arrowheads, and one glass vessel underline his social rank. The
spurs have a stylistic association with spurs known from the sphere of Wielbark culture and also to those found on the territory of the Northern European Barbaricum. Similar associations were identified regarding the belt buckle. This paper also examines whether the bow was part of the equipment of the Przeworsk culture warriors or was a hunting weapon.
The rescue archaeological research was undertaken between March – May 2022 in Alba Iulia city, at Republicii Blvd. no. 3.
The research perimeter lay within the Olympic Pool area, both inside the ...former courtyard of the property, on the east and north sides related to the existing building, as well as outside the courtyard, on the same sides.
The land plot is situated in the northern side of the city, on a high terrace, at 3.2 km north-west the Mureş, respectively 2.1 km west stream Ampoi, within an area that yielded multiple archaeological finds.
The archaeological investigations identified a number of 216 features, entirely examined and excavated, dating to the Bronze and Iron II Ages, the Roman and post-Roman periods, respectively the Modern period.
The prehistoric remains are represented by three features and a series of potshards, similarly to those of the La Tène, of which feature Cx 143, a horse burial, stands out.
Roman date features are statistically most numerous, while amongst these, burial structures (graves or set-ups of the funeral space) overwhelmingly illustrate the nature of the finds from this chronological cultural sequence of the excavated site sector.
The Roman graves unearthed during the archaeological campaign performed in the spring of 2022 are widely similar in terms of the burial ritual with those previously investigated on adjacent land plots, the biritual specificity of the cemetery being noted in this sector as well. Synthetically, it is worth mention that inhumations numerically dominate to the detriment of the cremations, with 61 inhumations, respectively 39 cremations found.
Post-Roman date remains, few in number, are represented by habitat and burial structures, the latter being inhumations of the migrations period dated by late 5th – first two thirds of the 6th century AD.
Among Modern date finds counts a house, which according to the identified artefacts dates starting with the second half of the 18th century.
The present volume collects most of the contributions to the plenary sessions held at the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, and incisively reflects the ever increasing broadening of ...the very concept of ‘Byzantine Studies’. Indeed, a particularly salient characteristic of the papers presented here is their strong focus on interdisciplinarity and their breadth of scope, both in terms of methodology and content. The cross-pollination between different fields of Byzantine Studies is also a major point of the volume. Archaeology and art history have pride of place; it is especially in archaeological papers that one can grasp the vital importance of the interaction with the so-called hard sciences and with new technologies for contemporary research. This relevance of science and technology for archaeology, however, also applies to, and have significant repercussions in, historical studies, where – for example – the study of climate change or the application of specific software to network studies are producing a major renewal of knowledge. In more traditional subject fields, like literary, political, and intellectual history, the contributions to the present volume offer some important reflections on the connection between Byzantium and other cultures and peoples through the intermediary of texts, stories, diplomacy, trade, and war.
Several Roman period surface scatters and a settlement located in the Yambol District, along the Tundzha River, have been investigated within the last few years. Surface surveys and geophysical ...prospection were combined with a thorough material evaluation, to allow a description of the possible dimensions and character of several sites, all likely located in the territory of ancient Kabyle. The investigation focused on several single features located in the Tundzha Municipality, such as the extensive settlement near Kozarevo village and a smaller installation, perhaps a villa, near the Roman settlement at Kabyle. Several scatters, already detected by the Tundzha Regional Archaeological Project, were re-surveyed in Elhovo Municipality, between the Dereorman and Gerenska rivers. The territory along the two rivers seems to have been densely populated during the 2nd–4th c. AD, with about 11 scatters dated to the Roman period, likely representing small rural settlements, distributed in regular intervals along the two rivers. One of the settlements on the Dereorman River, Yurta-Stroyno, surveyed and excavated in 2014–2016, provided a comparative base for the rest of the area. Evaluating the gathered data, the territory of Kabyle seems to have been quite self-sufficient during the Roman period. The rural settlements provide evidence of raw material processing, production of everyday items, as well as a preference for the locally available products, such as household pottery, limiting the number of pottery imports to a minimum.
The present geomorphology of the Mediterranean's coasts is largely a product of an intricate long-term relationship between Nature and human societies. A cradle of ancient civilisations, the ...Mediterranean has seen its shores occupied by Humans since Prehistory, and is, therefore, a particularly pertinent unit of analysis. The morphotectonic context and other forcing agents (e.g., climate) shaped out a highly diversified coastal morphology and generated a sediment-supply regime potentially favourable to the formation of numerous open-coast deltas and bay-head deltas in infilled rias as sea level stabilised during the mid-Holocene. This supply of riverine sediment has also been the key agent in mediating human occupation of the Mediterranean's clastic coasts. Expressions of this relationship have been extensively archived in clastic coastal deposits, including base-level deltaic and estuarine sedimentary sinks, which comprise records to explore the interactions between geosystems and the human environment. The stratigraphic sequences in these coastal sedimentary archives comprise, in many places, a clearly identified anthropogenic signature, notably in ancient harbours, some of which underwent extremely rapid silting up due to massive sediment sourcing generated by new agricultural practices from the Neolithic onwards. Increasing human influence, especially over the last 3000 years, has been, in turn, an important driver of changes in sediment supply, strongly modulating deltaic development. Pulses of sediment supply from catchments rendered vulnerable by human perturbations during the Roman period resulted in a new cycle of inception of many other deltas and in rapid delta growth (e.g. the Ebro, the Po, the Arno and the Ombrone). Another progradation dynamic during the Little Ice Age, at a time of strong rural population growth, river discharge increases, technological developments, and urbanisation, further consolidated delta growth. Understanding the life cycle of these deltas since their initial formation is, in turn, key to unravelling the relative role of natural and anthropogenic forcing agents. Rapid climate changes are deemed to have contributed through both the stripping of landscapes rendered fragile by human activities and active fluvial sediment transport to the coast, but disentangling climate change effects from human impacts in the Mediterranean remains a challenge. The patterns of subsequent deltaic growth and delta morphodynamics reflect adaptations to pulsed sediment supply, river discharge variations, the microtidal, fetch-limited context of the Mediterranean, and direct engineering interventions. The progradation dynamic of the Roman period and Little Ice Age contrasts markedly with the situation of common coastal destabilisation over the last two centuries, particularly well documented for the last 50 years. This period has been characterised by reduced sediment flux to base-level geosystems due to catchment reforestation, retenion within reservoirs, fluvial regulation and dredging, resulting in the erosion of deltas and barrier-lagoon and beach-dune systems. Large stretches of shoreline and narrow coastal plains have been massively engineered for coastal defence and protection against erosion, but also for the construction of marinas, leisure harbours and artificial beaches, resulting in the emergence of veritable artificial seafronts. These interventions have, collectively and progressively, raised societies to a pervasive and overarching position in the geomorphic stability-instability of the Mediterranean's coasts, a situation that will be exacerbated by pressures from sea-level rise, paving the way for rampant coastal erosion and delta destruction.
Equine exploitation at Pompeii (AD 79) Corbino, Chiara A.; Comegna, Chiara; Amoretti, Valeria ...
Journal of archaeological science, reports,
April 2023, 2023-04-00, Letnik:
48
Journal Article
Recenzirano
•This paper investigates human-equid interactions at Pompeii in AD 79.•Samples from urban and rural contexts have been included in this study.•The multidisciplinary approach is based on ...zooarchaeology, archaeobotany and genetics.•This paper offers an innovative and holistic approach of the human-equid relationship.•The achieved results enrich our knowledge of everyday life in Roman towns.
Equids were an important component of Roman everyday life. Horses, donkeys and their hybrids (mule and hinny) have been used as pack animals for moving people and goods through time. The most prestigious horse breeds were often associated with the social status of the owner as some equestrian statues and written sources seem to suggest. However, management and exploitation of this taxon at that time is still largely unknown.
This paper aims to investigate the human-equid relationship at Pompeii and to link the results to everyday life in a Roman town in the 1st century CE. Equid remains from several stables associated with urban houses and shops, as well as a rural villa have been subject to morphological, biometric, and ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis in order to enable their identification. The pathological evidence on the bones combined with ageing data has provided indications about the nature of the exploitation of these animals. Data on the fodder likely consumed by them were also obtained using previous studies to provide further hints about their management.
The results indicate that equid individuals ranging from 4 to 8 years old were preferred at Pompeii. Horses were largely employed in a number of activities inside the town as well as in the countryside. This study, focused on the analysis of equids collected from the Pompeii stables, provides important information about the exploitation and management of this taxon in the Roman Imperial period.
