M.C. (Martina Cecilia) Parini

Hellenistic and Roman landscapes of South Italy: integration and comparison of field survey data for settlement and land use analysis.

The aim of this project is to analyze the socio-economic structure of South Italian landscapes, during the Hellenistic and Roman period, through a supra-regional comparative perspective, based on the data collected by different field survey projects during the past years. It will be carried out in the framework of the planned extension of the Rome Hinterland Project, that created a unique database for the sites of the wide Roman suburbium (http://comparativesurveyarchaeology.org/). For Southern Italy, some long-term survey research projects have produced high-quality data about past human occupation of various territories. These data have been generally interpreted at a local and a regional level, but fewer attempts have been made to compare data from different regions. To achieve this supra-regional comparison, this project will merge datasets from different areas in an overarching database, so it will be possible to analyze the settlement dynamics in rural areas with a broad perspective.

Therefore, the primary goal is to identify and to explain the large-scale diachronic patterns, comparing regional variations and similarities, that characterized the countryside organization between the IV century BC and the II century AD. This questions will be addressed through four specific interconnected topics:

• Land use strategies: the significance of ‘off-site’ assemblages
• Merging and comparing large-scale field survey datasets: methodological remarks
• Rural settlement patterns
• Patterns of pottery consumption and commercial network integration.