Italian Prehistory

This paper discusses the Neolithic beginnings of metal-using and metal-working in the central Mediterranean region. In particular, a basic yet surprisingly long-standing question is addressed: when did metallurgy appear in this region? In the middle Neolithic, as Lawrence Barfield controversially proposed, or in the late Neolithic, as most scholars seem now keen to believe? And if the latter proves true, when exactly can we date its inception considering that the Italian late Neolithic lasted for about 700 years? The first section of the paper will examine whether some of the most archaic copper axes from this region can be dated to the middle Neolithic (c.5000-4500 cal. BC). The second section will discuss whether large copper implements including axes circulated south of the Alps in the late/final Neolithic (c.4500-3600 cal. BC), and if these were made locally or were all imported from neighbouring regions where extractive technology was already practised in this time period. The final section will briefly present Copper Age developments of the metallurgical practices established in Neolithic along with concluding remarks concerning the social and technological transformation, which occurred in the Central Mediterranean region in the 4th millennium BC.

The article’s aim is to foster an interdisciplinary debate regarding the direction that archaeometallurgical studies in the central Mediterranean region, from the late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c4500-1650 BC), ought to take in the next decade. It is argued that early metallurgical studies in the area have followed an idiosyncratic course due to the sway held on the discipline by Idealism, an influential philosophical movement that greatly hindered the development of science-based archaeology until the late 20th century. The last fifteen years, however, have witnessed an unprecedented if rather tumultuous expansion of metallurgical research, and important advances have been made in the chronology and chaîne opératoire of early metal technology and artefacts. Yet it is the author’s contention that, in order to reap full benefits from the recent disciplinary growth, an explicit research agenda must be set. Above all, it is argued that the new agenda must be grounded in the cross-disciplinary examination of the materiality of metalwork, hitherto poorly explored in this region.

CT-scan analyses were carried out on limb bones of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) from the Middle Pleistocene site of Castel di Guido (Italy), where bifaces made of elephant bone were found in association with lithics and a large number of intentionally modified bone remains of elephants and other taxa. CT-scans show that marrow cavities are present within the limb bones of this taxon.
Though rather small compared to the size of the bones, these cavities suggest that bone raw material procurement may not have been the unique goal of intentional elephant bone fracturing, and the marrow may also have been extracted for consumption.

Co-authored with Barbara Barbaro
I curatori hanno pregato gli autori anche a nome della casa editrice di non pubblicare i contributi online. Pertanto si presenta qui la sola prima pagina dell'articolo, comprendente l'Abstract.
ISBN 978-90-00000-00-0

The area corresponding to the modern city of Rome is usually known for the remains of the Roman civilization and the myths of its foundation in 753 BC. Less known is evidence of the prehistoric occupation occurring until the Bronze Age along the territory corresponding to the city of Rome and the surrounding area, called "Campagna Romana". Indeed, until a few years ago, the archaeological evidence relating to the phases of recent prehistory, from the ancient Neolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age, were completely, or almost completely, unknown. Recent excavations led to the identification of settlements associated with a complex cultural scenario and shed light on the social and cultural aspects of daily life of the human groups who occupied this territory before the Latium civilization.
This paper presents a detailed  study on Early Neolithic  material with new chronological data from Early Neolithic settlements in the Rome plain. Roman evidences are compared to avalaible data from other italian settlements of sixth and fifth millennia cal. BC.

The area corresponding to the modern city of Rome is usually known for the remains of the Roman civilization and the myths of its foundation in 753 BC. Less known is evidence of the prehistoric occupation occurring until the Bronze Age along the territory corresponding to the city of Rome and the surrounding area, called "Campagna Romana". Indeed, until a few years ago, the archaeological evidence relating to the phases of recent prehistory, from the ancient Neolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age, were completely, or almost completely, unknown. Recent excavations led to the identification of settlements associated with a complex cultural scenario and shed light on the social and cultural aspects of daily life of the human groups who occupied this territory before the Latium civilization.
This paper presents a first  study on Middle Neolithic  material with new chronological data from  Neolithic settlements in the Rome plain.

This study seeks to discuss the origins and early spread of metal technology in the central Mediterranean region. Neolithic and Copper Age evidence of metal-working and metal-using is first reviewed. It is claimed in particular that copper tools were first used, and probably also made, south of the Alps in the late Neolithic, and that complex polymetallic metallurgy developed in the early Copper Age after a short-lived intensification phase in the final Neolithic. In the second section, current models explaining the emergence of metallurgy in this region are then discussed, and a new proposal is put forward. This claims that metal technology, coming from eastern Europe, was imported into the whole of the eastcentral alpine region in the third quarter of the fifth millennium BC. Thence, it would have swiftly spread throughout northern Italy, central Italy, and Sardinia, and would have reached Corsica, southern Italy, and Sicily somewhat later. Finally, it is argued that the Copper Age metalworking communities dwelling in the western part of the central Mediterranean, and especially those located in west-central Italy, would have played a key role in transmitting knowledge of extractive metallurgy further west in the late fourth millennium BC.

In the period between the two World Wars, characterized by a general decay in the archaeological practice of the Italian prehistorians, Luigi Bernabò Brea and Giorgio Buchner developed new and advanced methods
of documentation and study of the archaeological stratigraphies.
While Buchner, born in Naples and son of a Deutsch geologist, developed his skills working on islands like Ischia, Vivara and Capri, Bernabò Brea, after a degree in Law, went to the Italian Archaeological School in
Athens, where he participated to the excavation at Poliochni, the largest EBA settlement on the Lemnos island. Both scholars served as functionaries in the State Antiquity Service (Buchner at Naples, Bernabò Brea at Taranto) in the same years also if, contrarily to Bernabò Brea, Buchner never became Head of an Antiquity Office; in their scientific evolution a big role was played by Luigi Cardini, an amateur archaeologist with a solid naturalist background, who directed in 1941 – together with Carlo Alberto Blanc – the excavations of the Grotta delle Felci in Capri where the young Buchner participated, and helped Bernabò Brea between 1941and 1950 in the exploration of the Arene Candide Cave, in Liguria.
In the late Forties Bernabò Brea (who in those years become Superintendent in Sicily) and Buchner collaborated in some excavations in the Aeolian Islands, in the Fifties while Bernabò Brea explored the big
protohistoric settlement of Lipari acropolis and other sites of the archipelago writing an important page in the study of Italian Pre- and Protohistory, Buchner carried out the excavations of the necropolis of the Greek colony of Pithekoussai in the San Montano valley, at Ischia, a site which he devoted himself until his death.
The paper tries to analyze the characteristics of the approach to the stratigraphy of these two pioneers of modern Italian archaeology.

Location: London UCL

More Info: 18 papers on topics regarding the Neolithization process in the Balkans

Publisher: Centralgrafica, Trieste

Publication Date: Jul 30, 2007

Publication Name: Società per la Preistoria e Protostoria della Regione Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Quaderno 12. Trieste.

Conference End Date: Jun 22, 2005

Conference Start Date: Jun 20, 2005

Who wanted to become a ‘Roman’ in north-west Italy? Anyone? How did the individual person experience Roman imperialism? How did his or her life change after the Roman conquest, and did it change at all? We need to put ourselves in this position. What would motivate us to change our lifestyle, our habit, our dress, our language and identity so dramatically? We can assume that the top elite in north-west Italy might make use of Roman power structures and Roman symbols of power to consolidate their power. But unlike provinces like Gaul and Britain, this is a process that was taking many generations in Italy in Italy and usually only culminates in the 1st century B.C. and A.D.; Roman symbols of power need to be understood first and still in the bilingual dedication from Vercelli we can see that it was not the dedicant’s aim to express his ‘Romanness’. Instead we can see a long process in which local elites seemingly managed to consolidate their power within the existing sociocultural framework as we can see from the Padane drachma and its iconography, from Lepontic epigraphy and Iron Age material culture (e.g. the vaso a trottola).
But what about other strata of society, like the ‘native’ farmer, trader, and craftsman? Are they really aspiring to take on Roman material culture and lifestyle, culture, humanitas? Many of those sub-elite people were merely trying to survive, trying to make a living in a rapidly changing world. Some were trading on local markets, specialising in goods that yielded the largest profit; others moved to the newly emerging cities, they become parts of guilds (collegia), while others again might join the Roman army. Many would have needed a basic knowledge of Latin to come by in everyday situations. Those people might never have aspired to show themselves as a ‘Roman’, but there must have been group pressures how to act in a particular context (possibly also leading to code switching among many people).Many other sub-elite people were enculturating and getting habituated in the new environment, for example by growing up in a Roman-style cities.
It is therefore necessary to de-construct the traditional theme of ‘Romanisation’ if we want to aspire for a deeper understanding of the changes in Iron Age and Roman north-west Italy. There is not one all-encompassing process, but instead lots of individual developments: there are economic developments (e.g., increasing trade relations; specialisation of production of goods and in agriculture; the monetisation of the economy), there are societal developments (like social and spatial mobility; the grants of ius Latii and Roman citizenship), there are political developments (like the creation of new elites in charge of Roman-style municipalities), there are cultural and religious developments, some of which are a consequence of the former developments, while others are independent. We also need to take into account that Rome herself was changing regarding inter alia the integration of its allies into Roman citizenship, the nature of Roman culture as an increasingly cosmopolitan culture, the promotion of certain imperial and colonial discourses on Rome and the princeps.

SUMMARY- ROCA AND THE AEGEAN WORLD FROM THE 16TH  TO THE 11TH CENT. B.C.: AN APPRAISAL – The paper contains three brief notes from the authors on themes related to the relationship with the Aegean and object of researches still ongoing. In the first we offer a brief update on the record related to the oldest occupation phases. The second consists of a quantitative study of Aegean-type material from Area X, which allows to reconstruct the diachronic dynamics of relations. In the third part, instead, is offered an analysis of architectonic innovations identified in the subapennine phase of the fortification walls.

RIASSUNTO - ROCA E IL MONDO EGEO TRA IL XVI E L'XI SEC. A.C.: UNA MESSA A PUNTO – Il contributo contiene tre brevi note degli autori su temi attinenti ai rapporti con l’Egeo e oggetto di ricerche in corso. Nella prima si propone un aggiornamento e una breve sintesi sulla documentazione riguardante le fasi più antiche di occupazione. Nella seconda è esposto uno studio quantitativo dei materiali di tipo egeo dal SAS X per ricostruire le dinamiche diacroniche dei rapporti. Nella terza viene presentata un’analisi delle innovazioni architettoniche registrabili nella fase subappenninica delle mura di fortificazione.

I musei civici di Reggio Emilia, Modena e Bologna furono tra i primi musei di preistoria in Italia e diretti risultati del clima culturale e politico dell’Europa del tardo ottocento. Sorti in concomitanza con la creazione dello stato italiano e con la formazione dell’archeologia preistorica come disciplina scientifica, questi musei furono rappresentativi, non solo del diffuso senso d’identità nazionale (benchè marcato da un forte orgoglio nelle tradizioni locali), ma anche delle impostazioni teoriche e dei metodi di ricerca dei primi studiosi italiani di preistoria e protostoria. Grazie alle coraggiose scelte curatoriali degli ultimi trent’anni, che hanno conservato e restaurato gli allestimenti ottocenteschi come ‘artefatti’ del passato, le collezioni ottocentesche di questi musei rappresentano ancora oggi risorse inestimabili per gli studiosi della storia della preistoria e protostoria italiana ed europea. Questo contributo esamina l’importanza che i primi studi di preistoria e l’attività di ricerca archeologica del tardo ottocento ebbero nel definire la natura e la identità di questi musei e come la loro missione originaria sia stata rispettata e rinnovata nelle scelte curatoriali recenti.

The autor present the result of the study of ceramic material from the excavation of Le Cerquete-Fianello (Maccarese, Rome), ascribed to the Middle Chalcolithic (3.550-2.920 B. C.). The site was found in 1987 and excavated from 1993 to 2002 by an interdisciplinary equipe directed by Alessandra Manfredini, Sapienza Università di Roma. Now days Maccarese is still one of the best known italian chalcolithic villages. In the excavated area was found a part of the living floor with five huts, pits, human burials and the intentional burial of a horse with two dog’s puppies. The study of the ceramics has taken in examination around 36.000 fragments. Departing from the raw material sourcing, the main aim of this research was to recostrustruct the choise related to the production of pottery vessels, not underestimating the implications of social character that are at the base of every production. The analysis of the spatial distribution of the vessels and the functional interpretation has allowed to formulate hypothesis about the destination of use of the structures. The hypothesis of a village organized for family groups has been so formulated.

Engravings on antlers retrieved in the Gaban Rockshelter  dated to Late Castelnovian (Riparo Gaban, Trento, Adige, Italy) suggest a cultural continuity with the Danubian Epigravettian, but other motifs reveal that the group used two different weaving technics diffused during Neolithic. A cylindrical bead made of red deer antler (Castelnovian)  depicts a loom and the warp-twined technic while a sharpened red deer metatarsal (Castelnovian-Neolithic transition)  and fashioned like an anthropomorphic shape called Gaban Venus, depicts a wool weaving technic using a crescent loom weight and a fabric with diamond motifs similar to the textile from Ledro  (Bronze Age, Trentino, Adige, Italy). These interpretations suggest that the Mesolithic group has integrated the cultivated flax into its own seasonal agricultural practices, and in the same time, integrated linen and wool weaving technics diffused simultaneously to caprines by Neolithic settlers. However, the diffusion of caprine exploited for meat and wool would have been the vector of an early Yersinia Pestis strain (Plague). Thanks to archaeogenetics and linguistics, this paper proposes the hypothesis of a travel from Sesklo (Volos, Greece) towards Lesser Caucasus to bring back copper arsenate, a solution used against body lice sheltered in fleeces, giving birth to the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece. Finally, the Neolithization of Southern Europe appears to be the historical context which defined Hellenization.

In the present work, we examine the personal adornment in proboscidean ivory from the Bell Beaker period at the hypogeum of Padru Jossu, Sanluri (Sardinia, Italy) currently preserved in the Museo Civico Archeologico Villa Abbas of Sardara. For the first time, a complete study-morphological, use wear and archaeometric-of this material has been conducted. The typological study established two categories: buttons and pins. Those categories were also subdivided into three groups respectively. Technological and functional analyses were made difficult by the strong degradation of the items and the presence of glue and varnish. The archaeometric study highlighted the diverse provenances of the proboscidean ivories, suggesting a chronological difference in the geographical sources, as well as in the mobility patterns implicit in the movements of the raw material. The ivory from the older Stratum iii is predominantly from the Asian elephant, and in the later Stratum ii the exclusive supplier species is the African Savannah elephant. It is also important to mention that in the ensemble from Stratum iii, one of the items seems related to the Eastern types of ossi a globuli, linking this Asian ivory with an Aegean and Oriental axis of mobility. Resumen: En el presente trabajo se han analizado los elementos de adorno personal de época campa-niforme en marfil de proboscídeos del hipogeo de Padru Jossu, Sanluri (Cerdeña, Italia) que actualmente se conservan en el Museo Cívico Arqueológico Villa Abbas de Sardara (Cerdeña, Italia). Por primera vez se ha realizado un estudio completo de este material-estudio morfológico, traceológico y arqueométrico-. El estudio tipológico ha permitido establecer dos categorías: la de los botones y la de los alfileres. Las dos cate-gorías se han subdividido en tres grupos cada una. Los análisis tecnológicos y funcionales han sido obstacu-lizados por la fuerte degradación de los artefactos y la presencia de pegamentos y barnices en la superficie. El estudio arqueométrico ha demostrado la diversidad de fuentes de aprovisionamiento de marfil de pro-boscídeos, mostrando una diferencia cronológica en el abastecimiento de esta materia prima. Mientras que en el más antiguo Estrato iii el marfil es predominantemente de elefante asiático, en el más tardío Estrato ii el marfil es exclusivamente de elefante africano de estepa. Así mismo, resulta interesante la aparición en 36 J. M. Morillo, C. Pau and J. Guilaine / The proboscidean ivory adornments from the hypogeum of Padru Jossu... © Universidad de Salamanca Zephyrus, LXXXII, julio-diciembre 2018, 35-64

Through the analysis of 106 obsidian artifacts from eight Chalcolithic sites throughout the island of Sicily (ca. 3500-2500 B.C.) this paper discusses the interplay between the procurement of obsidian raw materials and their consequent reduction, in turn highlighting long-term trends in lithic exploitation from the Neolithic through Chalcolithic eras. By combining obsidian sourcing with techno-typological analysis, this paper takes an initial step towards a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of obsidian exploitation in Chalcolithic Sicily and a more thorough comprehension of how obsidian was distributed from the islands of Lipari and Pantelleria. We in turn argue that when lithic data are analyzed within a chaîne opératoire approach combining analyses from multiple stages of artifact life histories this information represents a powerful means of engaging with major social science questions, where a particular regional dataset can be used to contribute to debates of broader archaeological significance.

Cultural landscape of a prehistoric hillfort: Tabor pri Vrabčah – The landscape of the Karst hillforts has been studied almost exclusively from the perspective of the hillforts themselves, treat- ing them as isolated points in an empty space. Airborne laser scanning surveys revealed a very well-preserved prehistoric landscape in the settlement niche of the Tabor pri Vrabčah hillfort. It is composed of the settlement, a large enclosure, and brickwork fields, preserved as a network of low walls and terraces. The brickwork fields are crossed by a walled track which connects the settlement with the pastures and fields. At the outer edges of the area some irregular fields and carnfields can be recognized. This mapping proves a vivid example that prehistoric landscapes were not empty spaces between settlements, but full of features and evidence of daily activities.

No Val Camônica (Brescia, Itália) há o maior sítio de arte rupestre da Europa, cuja investigação começou na primeira metade do século XX. Desde então a área se tornou cada vez mais importante para o estudo da (assim chamada) pré-história europeia e desempenhou um papel altamente representativo na busca das antigas raízes das comunidades do vale e, mais em geral, da própria Itália do norte. No final da década de 1980 foi criado o partido da Lega Nord (hoje o partido da Lega), promotor da instituição de um estado independente: a Padania. A partir desse momento, os temas das gravuras rupestres foram adotados, usados e abusados para divulgar ideologias e justificar intenções políticas. O presente texto visa ilustrar brevemente a dinâmica que está por trás do movimento civil e político da então Lega Nord e o esforço das instituições que se apelam à arqueologia para reconstruir o percurso da formação de uma identidade europeia comum a partir da história da Lombardia.