The project is aimed at the excavation and study, with a multidisciplinary perspective, of the necropolis of Castel Sozzio (Civitella D'Agliano, VT) which is located in the middle Tiber valley and is the only one under investigation in this region. Research in this site, partially investigated in 1997-98, was resumed in 2020 thanks to the 3 years "Concessione di Scavo" granted by the Direzione Generale Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio.
The settlement to which the funerary area pertained is still unknown and only future investigations and in-depth historical and topographic studies will help in identifying it. The necropolis counts at least 30 tombs of different typologies a large number of which were reused several times. A preliminary chronological analysis, based upon clues still to be fully verified, dates its use in the 5th-6th/7th c. AD but, as no furniture was found in the graves, it is difficult to define their exact chronology. Anthropological studies are hence essential to integrate archaeological data so as to understand the origins of the people using the necropolis, their habits, lifetime, lifestyle, and to reconstruct the historical, social and economic setting of this peculiar territory at the borders between Etruria and Lazio in the phase of transition from Antiquity to Middle Ages. Actually this was a crucial period for the region that, after the fall of the Roman Empire, saw the struggles between Goths and Lombards, and Byzantines.
During the Early Medieval period a still unidentified church of S. Maria and a small fortified settlement upon the hill south of the necropolis were built. Thus both archive research and history of art can give a key contribution to outline the cultural and artistic background of the site in an evolving territory. Research at Castel Sozzio can shed light not only on population patterns, but also on the reciprocal relations between the different peoples and cultures interacting in the region in this crucial period.
To date an archaeological research cannot be imagined without having a multidisciplinary approach that is the only way to give exhaustive answers to the questions arose by any study of the past. As concerns the excavation of a necropolis, only integrating archaeological (broadly speaking) and anthropological analysis a thorough understanding of the identity and social structure of the community to which it was related can be outlined. The contribution of other disciplines is also central to contextualie the site within its historical, geographical, paleoenvironmental and geological setting.
The key questions to which the research at Castel Sozzio aims at giving an answer may be resumed as follows:
- Which and where is the rural community using the necropolis?
- What kind of funerary practices and traditions can we reconstruct?
- Exactly in which period(s) was it in use?
- By which population group(s)?
- How was life quality and health conditions of this community?
- Can we infer a change of population in the different phases of use of the tombs?
The answers to these questions are essential to reconstruct the history of a site which is totally unknown despite its importance in a crucial period of historical, economic and cultural changes. At a larger scale this research can shed light on the organisation and use of territory in the middle Tiber Valley, that is largely unexplored apart from the ground-breaking studies of Cagiano De Azevedo.
The extensive excavation of a Late Roman and Early Medieval necropolis in this micro-region is a real innovation, since only rare and isolated tombs tentatively assigned to this transitional period were investigated so far. The necropolis of Castel Sozzio looks very promising from this perspective. It is the only large funerary area under excavation and it offers the potential of investigating -with the cooperation of different competences- a large number of burials and of reconstructing its whole organisation and phases of use.
As far as funerary practices excavations revealed a rather complex situation that needs to be analysed in depth. Stratigraphy proves that a large part of the graves was reopened and reused many times for subsequent burials and this attests the protracted use of the necropolis in terms of time; moreover bones pertaining to different individuals were uncovered scattered outside the tombs. This makes the reuse of tombs a highly complex procedure that forced the (maybe different?) communities using the cemetery into negotiating and formalizing, or even ritualizing, the way in which bodies were acted on.
A fundamental progress will be given by anthropological in-depth studies that are almost not-existent in this region. Together with the 14C analysis to define the chronological range of the deceased, other analysis will be carried out on mortality and health rate of the population. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes analysis will help in reconstructing the paleo-diet (TAFURI-GOUDE-MANZI 2018). The analysis on Strontium and Oxygen isotopes is fundamental to identify the ethno-cultural group(s) of the deceased and to determine their origins (GIOSTRA 2011; 2019; CANTINI-VIVA-MARANI 2017).
A really pioneering branch of anthropological research concerns the analysis of ancient DNA that will shed light on the internal relationships and possibly with other geographically and chronologically similar groups. The present project is part of a wider on-going study that takes place in collaboration with the University of Stanford on the population of northern Lazio, following to the study on the genomics of ancient Romans (ANTONIO-COPPA-PINHASI-PRITCHARD et al. 2019).
Medieval artistic evidence preserved in the area, never thoroughly studied, reflect precisely the variety of overlapping cultures; information will be collected on the Early Medieval church of Santa Maria de Castro Sotio, mentioned in ancient documents but still unidentified on the ground. Archive research has a great innovative potential -it was never done before in the area- as the lack of inventories makes the related information nearly unreachable. Also the study of historical cadastres is suitable for both reconstructing historical topography and improving information on the archaeological layout, also with the support of new technologies.
An important step of the project is the creation of an articulated informative system, able to contain, integrate and analyse different typologies of data. A web-based GIS makes possible the synchronous collaboration of experts and provides a constantly updated overall picture of the entire project. It can be the basis for a multi-scale online publication able to address the needs of different publics.
Thus, the excavation and research project in the necropolis of Castel Sozzio offers an unparalleled opportunity to investigate multiple questions and yet not explored fields concerning the evolution of this fundamental and strategic territory of the Tiber Valley.