The Archaeology of an Etruscan Polis: A Preliminary Report on the Tuscania Project (1986 and 1987 Seasons)

Abstract

ARCHEOLOGIA DI UNA POLIS ETRUSCA: RAPPORTO PRELIMINARE SUL PROGETTO TUSCANIA (STAGIONI 1986 E 1987)La comunicazione riguarda i risultati preliminari delle prime due stagioni di intensa ricognizione di superficie nella campagna circostante la città di Tuscania. Questo progetto della British School at Rome in collaborazione con l'università di Manchester, è diacronico in quanto si raccolgono reperti di superficie di tutti i periodi principali dalla preistoria al medioevo, ma con particolare interesse per il periodo etrusco, e si cerca di documentare tramite la sola ricognizione di superficie, la gerarchia di insediamento di un tipico centro etrusco di media grandezza. Nella prima fase di questo progetto sono stati percorsi transetti immediatamente a nord, sud, ovest ed est della città. Risultati preliminari sono pubblicati alle figure 2–5: queste carte sono solo provvisorie—non includono i dati “off site”, e le suddivisioni cronologiche derivano esclusivamente dall'analisi della ceramica fine; il futuro studio della ceramica grezza e delle tegole apporterà certamente qualche correzione a tale cronologia. Ciò nonostante due degli elementi interessanti già emersi sono l'improvvisa proliferazione di insediamenti avvenuta nel periodo etrusco, e l'esistenza di un “territorio agricolo” che si estendeva per un raggio di 4 o 5 km attorno alia città, mentre in epoca romana ville e fattorie erano distribuite più o meno regolarmente in tutta la campagna.

Settlement history, environment and human exploitation of an intermontane basin in the central Apennines: the Rieti survey 1988–1991, part I

“…We preferred this approach to a wholly randomized sample for reasons of convenience, since the logistical problems of locating randomly generated kilometre squares or transects within the intensively cultivated basin or on heavily wooded mountain slopes would have placed an unwarranted burden on our resources. We also felt that the examination in detail of contiguous tracts of landscape would tell us more about the inter-"The project follows in both the old and more recent British School at Rome tradition, being both a logical contination into the uplands of the pioneering work orchestrated by Ward-Perkins in South Etruria (Potter, 1979), and an off-shoot of Graeme Barker's long-term commitment to interdisciplinary survey in Italy (Barker, 1985;Barker and Hodges, 19.81b;Barker and Rasmussen, 1988;Barker and Symonds, 1984;Barker etal., 1978;. 38 Cherry (1983) is the classic statement of what is involved in intensive survey, though Barker (1991) is more succinct.…”

“…Eventually maps of 1:2000 scale were obtained from the land registry in Rieti for some of the transect area and results have been in part translated onto these sheets. Had these maps been available to us at the start of the project in 1988, we would have been able to achieve much greater 41 The large ploughed fields of the Tuscania cereal lands are particularly well-suited for intensive survey (Barker, 1988;Barker and Rasmussen, 1988;Rasmussen, 1991). 42 Though the dense forest and near-vertical scarps completely defeated our purpose in some places.…”

Tyrrhenian central Italy: Holocene population and landscape ecology

“…Historical geography information would be required to take the picture up to the present day, but was not collected for this paper. In addition, certain higher quality survey datasets were also unavailable, notably the British School at Rome South Etruria survey (Patterson et al 2004), the Tuscania survey (Barker and Rasmussen 1988) and the Val Cecina survey (Terrenato 1996). Tuscania had already been considered more extensively by a Forma Italiae study (included here), but the loss of the South Etruria survey is a more pronounced gap.…”

Interpreting a Ceramiscene Landscape – The Roman Pottery from the Nepi Survey Project

“…map. This sampling method has been shown to allow the prediction of trends in local settlement patterns (Barker 1988;Barker and Rasmussen 1988;Vullo and Barker 1997). Because four cardinal directions in the Nepi area correlate to a large extent with the past and present road network, transects were also drawn along the intercardinal directions to avoid excessive bias resulting from the Roman modifications of the landscape.…”