Insights into the Copper-Bronze Age diet in Central Italy: Plant microremains in dental calculus from Grotta dello Scoglietto (Southern Tuscany, Italy)

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 30-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Mariotti Lippi ◽  
Lisa Pisaneschi ◽  
Lucia Sarti ◽  
Martina Lari ◽  
Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Dental Calculus

III. Villanovan Veii

1961 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Ward-Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Precise Relationship ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The City

The roads and gates described in the previous section are of very varied dates, and many of them were in use over a long period. They have been described first because they constitute the essential framework for any serious topographical study of Veii. Within this framework the city developed, and in this and the following sections will be found described, period by period, the evidence for that development, from the first establishment of Veii in Villanovan times down to its final abandonment in late antiquity.Whatever the precise relationship of the Villanovan to the succeeding phases of the Early Iron Age in central Italy in terms of politics, race or language, it is abundantly clear that it was within the Villanovan period that the main lines of the social and topographical framework of historical Etruria first took shape. Veii is no exception. Apart from sporadic material that may have been dropped by Neolithic or Bronze Age hunters, there is nothing from the Ager Veientanus to suggest that it was the scene of any substantial settlement before the occupation of Veii itself by groups of Early Iron Age farmers, a part of whose material equipment relates them unequivocally to the Villanovan peoples of coastal and central Etruria.

The first religious buildings: ‘sacred huts’

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte R. Potts
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hot Springs ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Religious Activity ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Religious Buildings ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
The Bronze Age

The votive assemblages that form the primary archaeological evidence for non-funerary cult in the Neolithic, Bronze, and early Iron Ages in central Italy indicate that there is a long tradition of religious activity in Latium and Etruria in which buildings played no discernible role. Data on votive deposits in western central Italy is admittedly uneven: although many early votive assemblages from Latium have been widely studied and published, there are few Etruscan comparanda; of the more than two hundred Etruscan votive assemblages currently known from all periods, relatively few date prior to the fourth century BC, while those in museum collections are often no longer entire and suffer from a lack of detailed provenance as well as an absence of excavations in the vicinity of the original find. Nevertheless, it is possible to recognize broad patterns in the form and location of cult sites prior to the Iron Age, and thus to sketch the broader context of prehistoric rituals that pre-dated the construction of the first religious buildings. In the Neolithic period (c.6000–3500 BC), funerary and non-funerary rituals appear to have been observed in underground spaces such as caves, crevices, and rock shelters, and there are also signs that cults developed around ‘abnormal water’ like stalagmites, stalactites, hot springs, and pools of still water. These characteristics remain visible in the evidence from the middle Bronze Age (c.1700–1300 BC). Finds from this period at the Sventatoio cave in Latium include vases containing traces of wheat, barley seed cakes, and parts of young animals including pigs, sheep, and oxen, as well as burned remains of at least three children. The openair veneration of underground phenomena is also implied by the discovery of ceramic fragments from all phases of the Bronze Age around a sulphurous spring near the Colonelle Lake at Tivoli. Other evidence of cult activities at prominent points in the landscape, such as mountain tops and rivers, suggests that rituals began to lose an underground orientation during the middle Bronze Age. By the late Bronze Age (c.1300–900 BC) natural caves no longer seem to have served ritual or funerary functions.

Settlement, space organization and land-use of a small Middle Bronze Age community of central Italy. The case study of Gorgo del Ciliegio (Arezzo-Tuscany)

2020 ◽  
Vol 539 ◽  
pp. 122-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Moroni ◽  
Vincenzo Spagnolo ◽  
Jacopo Crezzini ◽  
Francesco Boschin ◽  
Marco Benvenuti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Space Organization ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

Diet reconstructed from an analysis of plant microfossils in human dental calculus from the Bronze Age site of Shilinggang, southwestern China

2017 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 41-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naimeng Zhang ◽  
Guanghui Dong ◽  
Xiaoyan Yang ◽  
Xinxin Zuo ◽  
Lihong Kang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Southwestern China ◽  
Dental Calculus ◽  
Plant Microfossils ◽  
The Bronze Age

scholarly journals Lifestyle of a Roman Imperial community: ethnobotanical evidence from dental calculus of the Ager Curensis inhabitants

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessia D’Agostino ◽  
Angelo Gismondi ◽  
Gabriele Di Marco ◽  
Mauro Lo Castro ◽  
Rosaria Olevano ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Juglans Regia ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Starch Granules ◽  
Dental Calculus ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Hemp Fibers ◽  
Animal Resources

Abstract Background The analysis of ancient calcified dental plaque is a powerful archaeobotanical method to elucidate the key role of the plants in human history. Methods In this research, by applying both optic microscopy and gas chromatography mass spectrometry on this matrix, a detailed qualitative investigation for reconstructing the lifestyle of a Roman imperial community of the Ager Curensis (Sabina Tiberina, Central Italy) was performed. Results The detection of animal micro-remains and molecules (e.g., hairs, feather barbules, markers of dairy products), starch granules of several cereals and legumes, pollen (e.g., Juglans regia L., Hedera sp. L.) and other plant micro-debris (e.g., trichome of Olea sp., hemp fibers), and phytochemicals (e.g., Brassicaceae, Lamiaceae herbs, Ferula sp., Trigonella foenum-graecum L., wine, and Humulus lupulus L.) in the dental calculus sample demonstrated that plant-derived foods were regularly consumed together with animal resources. Conclusions This nutritional plan, consistent with the information reported in ancient written texts, suggested that the studied population based its own subsistence on both agriculture and husbandry, probably also including beekeeping and hunting activities. All together, these results represent proofs for the comprehension of food habits, phytotherapeutic practices, and cultural traditions of one of the first Roman settlements in the Sabina Tiberina area.

Wood identification of pile dwellings from the Bronze Age San Savino site (Lake Trasimeno, central Italy)

2014 ◽  
Vol 148 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Angelini ◽  
M. C. De Angelis ◽  
R. P. Guerzoni ◽  
D. Gigante ◽  
A. Rubini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Wood Identification ◽  
The Bronze Age

building techniques and materials, Roman

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger B. Ulrich
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Roman Architecture ◽  
The North ◽  
Mediterranean World

The inherent strengths, weaknesses, and availability of diverse Roman building materials governed the techniques used in construction and greatly influenced the final appearance of Roman architecture. Trace archaeological evidence exists of buildings and burials in Rome from the Italian Bronze Age (second millennium bce) or earlier, and substantial physical remains, in the form of Iron-Age huts and grave goods, roughly correspond to the Romans’ own belief of the foundation date of their city (traditionally 753 bce). Rome’s earliest builders sourced materials obtainable from the immediate environment and transformed them using practical knowledge. Within the span of a couple centuries, architectural design, implementation, and decoration reflect a broad interaction between Roman builders and their counterparts in the regions around central Italy (particularly Etruria to the north and Campania to the south) and also the wider Mediterranean world, particularly those areas where Greeks traditionally lived or had placed colonies. While southern Italy and Sicily represent the closest areas for the transmission of Greek ideas, Greek building practices on the Greek mainland and in Asia Minor also influenced Roman projects from the Archaic period onwards. As Rome grew wealthier and expanded abroad, patrons and builders imported marble to the capital from the Aegean, well before the discovery of more local, Italian sources. The importation of exotic stones grew exponentially over the period of the late Republic and the first two centuries of empire. The coloured marbles that embellished the buildings of Rome served as physical testimony to Rome’s control over the eastern Mediterranean. Nothing, however, was as transformative as the adoption of concrete in the late 3rd century bce, the mass production of fired brick, and the ensuing experimentation that resulted in the vaulted structures that have become the hallmark of Roman architecture.

The earliest horse-bits of western Europe

1973 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 425-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Balkwill
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
New Combinations ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Rite

Within recent years, much attention has been focused on the earliest objects of harness which have long been noticed in the archaeological record. They are a matter of some importance in the perception of social structure from extant remains; Kossack (1954) presented strong arguments in favour of interpreting, in this manner, the early Hallstatt (Ha C) horse harness from Bavarian graves. Other major publications have since added to the picture of widespread, supposedly aristocratic adoption of harness and wagons in association with burial rite (northern and central Italy in the Early Iron Age, von Hase 1969; the Iberian peninsula in the same period, Schüle 1969; the Middle Danube to the Russian Steppes and to the Asian hinterland, Potratz 1966). Nor has the thesis of Gallus and Horvath (1939) been ignored, and the activities of ‘Thraco-Cimmerian’ cavalry still play a large part in the interpretation of west European horse harness. Already in 1954, however, Kossack observed the continuing elements of native, western Urnfield Europe in the entirely new combinations of grave-goods in Ha C and he indicated that the cheekpieces, while being modelled closely on the lines of preceding types found in the region of the Middle Danube, were, in fact, local variants chiefly concentrated in the graves of Bohemia and Bavaria. That western Europe had long had its own forms of cheekpiece was demonstrated by Thrane in 1963, yet the mouthpieces themselves have received no consolidated attention. This paper is an attempt to redress the balance, by gathering together the earliest metal bits in Europe west of Slovakia and Hungary, in order to see what light they throw on the problems of continuity and transition at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

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