Ricerc@Sapienza

Archeobotanica nella valle del Murghab

The adoption of a new funerary ritual denotes an important change in society, although it can be difficult to identify the triggers. In the past,
theories such as that of Luigi Pigorini on the origin of the Terramare culture, the concept of mass migration was used as the central explanation. In the 20th century, alternative approaches have emphasized the role of local developments and ideological change in response to ‘global’ macro-trends.

The emergence of the first forms of socio - economic inequality is one of the aspects to which Marcella Frangipane
has most contributed. In this paper the concepts of horizontal egalitarian or vertical egalitarian systems used for the Neolithic
and Chalcolithic Mesopotamian societies are compared with the social organization of the Bronze Age Terramare
culture, (Po valley - Italy). The result of the comparison shows convergences with the vertical egalitarian system model,
but also significant differences.

The application of biomolecular techniques for the study of food practices in the Italian Bronze Age has revealed an interesting complexity. This is particularly true for the Po plain, in northern Italy, where the use of “alternative” grains (i.e., the millets) has been assessed isotopically through the measurement of stable carbon (?13C) and nitrogen (?15N) isotope ratios in human and animal bone collagen at the site of Olmo di Nogara (Verona). This work provides new isotopic data from 12 Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Age sites from western Veneto and Friuli.

Research on weight systems used during the Bronze Age, prior to the introduction of writing,
generally assumes that the widespread use of metal as ‘commodity currency’ eventually resulted
in the adoption of widely shared systems of measurement. Many studies aimed at the identification
of recurrent weight values as multiples and/or submultiples of theoretical standard units. This
approach faces two limitations: 1) the absence of written sources, or at least statistically sound

The authors present a reconsideration of warfare evidence in south-eastern Italy during the Bronze Age on the ground of the archaeological data coming from the excavations at Coppa Nevigata. In particular, the transformations of the defensive lines of the settlement through time are discussed, as in all likelihood these were strictly linked to both defensive and offensive strategies and their changes. In this framework, the evidence of the assault that the settlement witnessed around 1500 BC, which caused a severe re in a portion of the village, is analyzed.

Evidence related to the gathering of murex for purple-dye production at the Bronze Age settlement of Coppa Nevigata (Apulia, Italy) is considerable, as discussed elsewhere. Previous studies have shown that the processing of purple-dye possibly started from the 19-18th centuries BCE and continued throughout the entire Bronze Age, reaching its highest peak in the Middle Bronze Age (15th-14th c. BCE), and then decreasing in the Late Bronze Age (13th – 12th c. BCE).

The paper presents a reconsideration of settlement pattern and defensive systems in south-eastern Italy during the Bronze Age, on the ground of the archaeological data coming from the excavations at Coppa Nevigata. In particular, the transformations of the defensive lines of the settlement are discussed, which were strictly linked to both defensive and offensive strategies and their changes.

This paper discusses socio-cultural developments in central and southern Italy between the late 3rd and the early 1st millennia BC, particularly focussing on settlement patterns. Over this span of time, the foundations were laid for the process towards urbanisation that occurred in various Italian regions at the threshold of the historic period.

l progetto di ricognizione in Molise, avviato nel 2015 dalla cattedra di Paletnologia della Sapienza Università di Roma (Lucci, Mironti, Modesto 2016), in questi anni sta restituendo numerose informazioni pertinenti all’occupazione delle aree interne della regione durante la Preistoria recente (Cazzella et alii 2017; 2018).Nuove indagini focalizzatesi sulla vallata del torrente Rivo, affluente del fiume Trigno, hanno consentito di individuare una serie di testimonianze archeologiche pertinenti all’età del Bronzo, tra cui i siti di Morgia di Pietra Fenda (Trivento, CB) e Morgia di Pietra Lum