Putting the Spotlight on Small Metal Age Pottery Scatters in Northern Calabria (Italy)

Abstract

article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Groningen Institute of Archaeology, Groningen, the Netherlands ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of an in-depth multidisciplinary restudy of small Metal Age surface scatters recorded in earlier fieldwalking surveys in northern Calabria (Italy). Guided by a stratified sampling approach based on site types and topographic positions, high-resolution surface collections at the selected sites were combined with geophysical surveys, test pits, and soil studies to investigate both archaeological deposits and the site formation processes that have an effect on their detectability. This approach is shown to result in a better definition of archaeological 'sites', and to help fill in details of regional exploitation and settlement dynamics at the landscape scale. At this broader scale we are also able to model post-depositional processes and slope dynamics affecting the preservation of the archaeological record. With regard to methodology, our study has enabled the evaluation of diverse archaeological detection methods and the fine-tuning of field strategies for the study of Metal Age remains.

“There's more than meets the eye”: Developing an integrated archaeological approach to reconstruct human–environment dynamics in the Pontine marshes (Lazio, Central Italy)

“…In this article, we present the results of a pilot study that employs an interdisciplinary off‐site approach to study past human engagements with the environment in the Pontine plain, central Italy. It ties in with other recent (experimental) work that highlights the importance of such an approach to reconstruct the full range of activities and interventions associated with rural settlement and land use (Campana, 2017; de Neef, Armstrong, & van Leusen, 2017). Our study complements such work by expanding the range of approaches, combining detailed surface survey, remote‐sensing analyses, geophysical prospections, geoarchaeological investigations and palaeoenvironmental analyses.…”

“…However, scholars have questioned the effectiveness of the method in mapping the more ephemeral traces of pre‐ and post‐Roman activity (cf. Bintliff et al, 1999; Bintliff, Farinetti, Slapšak & Snodgrass, 2017; de Neef et al, 2017; van Leusen, Pizziolo, & Sarti, 2011), and this scepticism is further corroborated by the pilot study. During our regular and already quite intensive field surveys, protohistoric ceramics were only found in very small quantities, and their scattered distribution is quite difficult to interpret.…”

“…The geophysical prospections aimed to map any extant subsurface features. Building on previous experiences, we conducted a large‐scale continuous magnetometer survey (on the principles and potential of this technique: Campana, 2009, 2017; Meyer, Kniess, & Goosens, 2012; de Neef et al, 2017; Powlesland, 2009; Ullrich et al, 2011). In the local conditions, this method is excellently suited to identify channels and ditches by the enhanced magnetization of their fills, as well as features with a high remanent magnetization caused by fire such as burnt bricks, kilns, fireplaces, and so forth.…”

A multidisciplinary study of an exceptional prehistoric waste dump in the mountainous inland of Calabria (Italy): Implications for reconstructions of prehistoric land use and vegetation in Southern Italy

“…Data on these properties are shown in Figure 5a and pertain to the gridded magnetic susceptibility measurements on the pit sections by Armstrong using a Bartington MS3 with a point (F-) sensor at a resolution of 10 cm. Three readings were taken at each point and subsequently averaged (De Neef et al., 2017).…”

“…In this area, site RB073 is situated on a slope that based on earlier research was assumed to be severely eroded and nearly devoid of archaeological remains (Feiken, 2014). However, corings at this site showed the presence of a thick sequence of anthropogenic layers with abundant charcoal, fragments of ceramics and bones, as well as with a layer of tephra that based on 14 C datings originates from the Vesuvian Pompeii eruption in 79 AD (De Neef, 2016;De Neef et al, 2017;Sevink et al, 2016). This complex sequence of layers was further studied in two small pits (De Neef, 2016) that reached down to about 2 m depth, but did not yet reach the underlying in-situ soil or regolith.…”