RICERCA ITALIANA     

Environment, raw materials, technologies, subsistence strategies and dynamics of the settlement patterns since the Upper Paleolithic until the Early Iron Age in the area of Mondragone (CE)

Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

Abstract

The importance of the Prehistory of the Mondragone (Caserta) area became evident in the last ten years thanks to the results of surface surveys and systematic excavations carried out since 1994 by the University of Naples “Federico II” and, successively, by the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, together with the Archaeological Superintendence of Naples and Caserta and the Mondragone municipality.
Several prehistoric sites, referable to the Upper Palaeolithic, the Neo-Eneolithic, the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, have been discovered; amongst them, the Cave of Roccia San Sebastiano represents the most important evidence and the unique example of a stratified Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian) site in the area comprised between the Northern coast of Campania and the Southern coast of Latium.
In consideration of the entity of the finds and of the importance of the cultural succession observed in the cave, this project consists in a detailed territorial study which could clarify the different paleo-environmental contexts and the related dynamics of the peopling of the area during the different above mentioned Periods.
The success of this project depends on a series of objectives linked to specific researches, whose results could answer to particular problems such as:
- The characterization of the paleo-environments and the geological reconstruction of the landscape of Mondragone area in pre- and protohistoric times;
- The identification and the characterization of lithic raw material sources since the end of Upper Pleistocene until the Holocene;
- The definition of the cultural identities living in the area during the above mentioned Periods;
- The identification of the techno-economic systems realized during Upper Palaeolithic and more recent pre- and protohistoric Periods and the functional analysis of specifics classes of tools;
- The interpretation of symbolic and artistic manifestations;
- The preparation of a computerized cartographic regional base and the production of thematic maps through an inter-site and intra-site GIS application, as a global tool for the management and the implementation of the environmental and archaeological data.
The kind of approach we would like to adopt is based on a series of specific multidisciplinary competences, characterized by the presence of various specialists subdivided in two Research Unities.
The first one will be directed by Prof. Marcello Piperno of the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, with a prevailing archaeological role. The second one will be directed by Prof. Diana Barra of the University of Naples “Federico II”, and will be essentially dedicated to the study of the geological and paleo-environmental aspects and to petrographic analysis. <<<

Principal Investigator

Marcello Piperno Università degli Studi di ROMA "La Sapienza"

Research Objectives

The principal aim of this Research Project is the reconstruction of the interactions between the environmental processes and the anthropic dynamics in the area of the actual Mondragone municipality since Upper Palaeolithic until the Early Iron Age.
The Project is articulated in operatives phases addressed to a deep research of the territorial aspects and archaeological contexts of the Mondragone area, as well as to the prosecution of the researches in the Cave of Roccia San Sebastiano, through systematic excavation campaigns and studies.
The success of the project is based on a series of objectives related to specific questions, such as:
- The palaeo-ecological analysis of the Mondragone Plane and the reconstruction of the geomorphology of the landscape during pre- and protohistoric times;
- The characterization of the raw material sources since the end of the Pleistocene until the Holocene;
- The realization of a cartographic computerized base through a GIS application for the implementation of the archaeological and environmental data;
- The production of a thematic cartography for the selective and/or integrated, diachronic and/or synchronic treatment of the environmental and archaeological data;
- The description of the cultural contexts and of the geological dynamics related to the formation process of the archaeological deposits;
- To obtain an absolute chronology through a series of C14 dates of different levels and sites;
- The identification of the technical systems realized during Upper Palaeolithic and more recent Periods (technical-economical analysis of the lithic and bone artefacts, of pottery assemblages and metal objects);
- The functional analysis of lithic and bone Upper Palaeolithic artefacts;
- The interpretation of the symbolic/artistic evidences (engraved pebbles and bones) found during excavations in the cave.
These objectives represent different steps in order to achieve a more wide finality: the definition of the cultural identities interacting in the studied area and the characterization of the different palaeo-environments since the Upper Palaeolithic until the Early Iron Age. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The Prehistory of the Mondragone (Caserta) area emerged in its importance thanks to the results of systematic surveys undertaken since 1994 by the University of Naples “Federico II” together with the Archaeological Superintendence of Naples and Caserta.
Moreover, since 2001, the University of Rome “La Sapienza” carried out regular excavation campaigns of the very important Upper Palaeolithic deposit in the large cave opening in the locality of Roccia di San Sebastiano (Lavino et al. 1999, 2003; Belluomini et al. 2002; Piperno 2003, 2006), which represents the only evidence of Palaeolithic frequentation systematically and stratigraphically studied in the territory comprised between the Northern Campania coast and the Southern Latium coast.
The site is even more important if we consider the exiguity of prehistoric evidences referable to the Gravettian overall the Italian peninsula.
Several prehistoric sites are actually known, thanks to surface surveys and important collections of archaeological material referable to different period comprised between Upper Palaeolithic and Early Iron Age.
Among them, the most important are attributed to the initial (Arivito) and final phase of the Upper Palaeolithic (Incaldana – Roccia San Sebastiano), to the Neo-Eneolithic (Arivito, Starza, Bagni Solfurei, San Pietro) and to the Bronze Age (Bagni Solfurei, Sant’Eufemia). Equally important are the collections attributed to the Early Iron Age and to the Archaic Age in the localities of Arivito and Monte Petrino.
On the basis of these evidences the project would like to consider both a detailed territorial study of the dynamics of the peopling during the above mentioned pre- and protohistoric periods and a careful environmental reconstruction of the geological processes which determined the paleo-economical choices.
Within the global approach to the study of the prehistoric environments, the prosecution of the researches at the Cave of Roccia San Sebastiano represents one of the main objectives of the project, which will allow to insert the study of this cave in a more wide territorial perspective.
Several disciplinary aspects and methodological approaches characterize the present project, related to the different foreseen analysis of the archaeological, the geological and the environmental approach.
The proposed methodologies partially reflect traditional approach such as excavations, surveys, catalogues of sites and materials, etc., while in part they insist on new technologies and methods, recently experimented in Prehistory and Geological Sciences, such as the GIS (Geographical Information System) applications, the use of digital techniques for the archaeological survey, the technological study of the lithic assemblages, the functional analysis of the lithic and bone tools and the petrographic definition of litho types and raw material sources.

As far as the territorial analysis is concerned, several technologies are used for the construction of a cartography reproducing settlement patterns: the Geographical Information System (GIS), the Remote Sensing and the GPS are known as the best tools generally used in most Italian and international case studies (Scollar et al. 1990; Candelato et al. 2003).
At this regard the contribution of informatic tools as the GIS is extremely important. The first application of these systems in Archaeology have been realised in Northern America (Kvamme 1998), but it is at the beginning of the nineties that GIS applications show an exponential development, not only as management tools but as an interpretative instrument, through the utilization of their statistic and analytical features (Allen et al., 1990; Lock 2000).
Moreover, the utilization of three-dimensional GIS allowed the realization of space-temporal models which permit to analyse the modifications of a determinate landscape during times (Castelford 1992).
As far as Italia is concerned, the attention to the new archaeological applications of computational methods still seems to be rather underestimated (De Guio 1991; Moscati 1996).
Besides the study of the archaeological contexts, the realization of the objectives of this territorial research needs a deep knowledge of the geology of the Mondragone area and of the morphological evolution of the landscape during the Upper Pleistocene and the Holocene (Cinque et al. 1987; Brancaccio et al. 1995; Billi et al. 1997; Abate et al. 1998; Pennetta et al. 1998).
These data will shed light on landscape evolution and will provide important information as for raw materials source areas in an environmental context much different than at present. Petrographic and stratigraphic analyses should be associated to geological as to define both archaeological samples and provisioning areas lithologies.
Petrographic analyses are critical to ascertain provisioning and management of raw materials. We plan to integrate two different approaches: the petrographic/geologic one and the geochemical one.
With this, our methodology follows macro and microscopic investigations of prehistoric flint manipulation, performed by French archaeologists since the early eighties (Masson 1981). This approach is now widespread in Europe and in Nord America(Bressy 2003).
For a reliable identification of provisioning areas (which is critical to find out any evidence of raw material “trading” between coeval sites) we will add to this approach a preliminary geochemical analysis of the raw material.
Provisioning area analyses developed in Great Britain (Cann and Renfrew 1964), referring to the study of obsidian manufacts from the Mediterranean area. Geochemical analyses on flints are performed since the early seventies. These analyses, mainly atomic emission spectroscopy, leaded to the discovery of numerous Neolithic provisioning areas in Europe (de Bruin 1972), and of Upper Cretaceous flints in Dordogne (France) and in North America (Cackler et al. 1999). Atomic absorbance spectrometry allowed to study the geochemical composition of Finnish manufacts (Matiskainen et al. 1989). PIXE (Particle-Induced X-ray Emission) and X-ray fluorescence analyses applied on flint manufacts are much rarer. In Italy, the chemical analysis of Gargano flints performed via ICP-AES (Inductived Conjoint Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry; D’Ottavio 2001) stands out as a recent and important example.
The study of obsidian would similarly benefit of geo-mineralogical analyses (Rande et al. 1993; Stewart et al. 2003).

Regarding the prosecution of the researches at the Cave of Roccia San Sebastiano, a multidisicplinary approach will be followed, allowing a better understanding of this archaeological context.
Techniques of digital documentation, experimented during the last years will be adopted for the description of the excavation surfaces and the archaeological material. The storage and elaboration of data will be realized in a GIS application in order to elaborate detailed intra-site analysis (Gallotti and D'Andrea 2004; Gallotti and Piperno 2004). The contextual and/or selective treatment of spatial-temporal variables allows a global management of all the data related to the excavation and to the study of the materials. As far as the analysis of the lithic production is concerned, the general finality of this project is the reconstruction of the technical systems adopted at the Cave of Roccia San Sebastiano and, more generally, in the entire area during different Prehistoric times.
In this sense an approach based on the concept of chaîne opératoire will be adopted; this will permit to place every object in its precise context, by the identification of the technical processes related to its production, such as the raw material exploitation, the tools production and utilization and their final abandonment (Inizan et al. 1995).
Such a methodology, largely utilized since several years in France, is still poorly adopted in our Country, where a traditional typological approach seems to prevail, which considers exclusively the final state of the technical steps, utilizing these characters in order to recognize affinities and differences between assemblages.
The technological approach is useful to recognize the cognitive implications of the lithic production, and the deep understanding of the relations between man and environment (Pelegrin 1985; Boëda 1991; Geneste 1991; Schlanger 1994; Bleed 2001; Boëda 2005). The operative tools largely discussed since the eighties (Binder 1987; Geneste 1991; Ploux et al. 1991), are the concept of the economy of débitage and of raw material – considering the economy as a “differential management”, which allow to effectively isolate the different dynamics of the technical system and the consequently adopted chooses. <<<