The study of seeds and fruits allow us to extend our knowledge on the various aspects of the ancient agricultural practices, giving the basic information to understand the evolution of the agricultural phenomenon, to determine the level of the food production and, to some extent, the state of the local environment. Only in the end of the last century, Campania has witnessed an increased growth in research focused on highlighting archaeobotany as an aspect of Italian protohistory. In those years, in fact, several archaeobotanical reports were published, focusing on the analysis and the study of plant remains collected in various Bronze age sites. Such investigations have thus filled the gap that has been generated by the special attention that researchers have paid for long time to improve their knowledge on the ancient relationship between man and the environment mainly through the study of the large quantity of data available in the Roman cities buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. This paper presents new archaeobotanical data from three sites of different areas of the Campania region, Italy, dated to the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2200-1600 cal. BC) – Nola, Piazza d’Armi, Nola, loc. Croce del Papa and Ariano Irpino, loc. La Starza. A total of 267 l of sediment has been sampled and 7234 remains retrieved. 33 samples from Croce del Papa and Piazza d’Armi were processed and 40 samples were hand-picked during excavation of Piazza d’Armi and La Starza. The study reveals the presence of cereals (Hordeum vulgare, Triticum dicoccum, Triticum durum/aestivum, Panicum sp.), pulses (Vicia faba, var. minor, Lens culinaris) and wild plants (Cornus mas, Ficus carica, Corylus avellana, Prunus dulcis, Prunus cf. spinosa, Quercus sp., Vitis vinifera). Linum usitatissimum is attested too. Similarities and differences between the agrarian choices of settled human communities, between Early and Middle Bronze Age, in these different areas of the Campania region, are de ned and, in addition, this framework is compared with what is already known of the ancient agricultural history of Campania and south-western Italy. The information obtained improved our knowledge of the agricultural practices, the processing of the harvest carried out during protohistory and offers also a detailed information on the food production and exploitation of the lo- cal plant resources. In particular, at Croce del Papa site, the correlation of data from the study of the archaeobotanical evidence with the sampling context, well related to daily life activities, offers a unique glimpse into the agricultural cycle mainly concerning to various phases of crop processing as never before possible, from transport from the fields to the village, to the threshing process, until the storage prior to food production.
La protostoria agricola della Campania: nuovi dati archeobotanici
DELLE DONNE, MATTEO
2019-01-01
Abstract
The study of seeds and fruits allow us to extend our knowledge on the various aspects of the ancient agricultural practices, giving the basic information to understand the evolution of the agricultural phenomenon, to determine the level of the food production and, to some extent, the state of the local environment. Only in the end of the last century, Campania has witnessed an increased growth in research focused on highlighting archaeobotany as an aspect of Italian protohistory. In those years, in fact, several archaeobotanical reports were published, focusing on the analysis and the study of plant remains collected in various Bronze age sites. Such investigations have thus filled the gap that has been generated by the special attention that researchers have paid for long time to improve their knowledge on the ancient relationship between man and the environment mainly through the study of the large quantity of data available in the Roman cities buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. This paper presents new archaeobotanical data from three sites of different areas of the Campania region, Italy, dated to the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2200-1600 cal. BC) – Nola, Piazza d’Armi, Nola, loc. Croce del Papa and Ariano Irpino, loc. La Starza. A total of 267 l of sediment has been sampled and 7234 remains retrieved. 33 samples from Croce del Papa and Piazza d’Armi were processed and 40 samples were hand-picked during excavation of Piazza d’Armi and La Starza. The study reveals the presence of cereals (Hordeum vulgare, Triticum dicoccum, Triticum durum/aestivum, Panicum sp.), pulses (Vicia faba, var. minor, Lens culinaris) and wild plants (Cornus mas, Ficus carica, Corylus avellana, Prunus dulcis, Prunus cf. spinosa, Quercus sp., Vitis vinifera). Linum usitatissimum is attested too. Similarities and differences between the agrarian choices of settled human communities, between Early and Middle Bronze Age, in these different areas of the Campania region, are de ned and, in addition, this framework is compared with what is already known of the ancient agricultural history of Campania and south-western Italy. The information obtained improved our knowledge of the agricultural practices, the processing of the harvest carried out during protohistory and offers also a detailed information on the food production and exploitation of the lo- cal plant resources. In particular, at Croce del Papa site, the correlation of data from the study of the archaeobotanical evidence with the sampling context, well related to daily life activities, offers a unique glimpse into the agricultural cycle mainly concerning to various phases of crop processing as never before possible, from transport from the fields to the village, to the threshing process, until the storage prior to food production.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
