News 2012
Archaeological Investigations in the Potenza Valley (Northern Picenum, Italy) - Field Season 2012
Fig. 1 View on the lower Potenza valley and the Adriatic sea.
The Ghent university team studying settlement and landscape dynamics in the central-Adriatic valley of the River Potenza organized a field campaign in September 2012. During this campaign the suburban area of the Adriatic coastal colony Potentia (founded 184 BC)was further investigated, with applications of geomorphological fieldwork (soil corings, ecological sampling, geological observations...), geophysical prospections (GPR, Earth resistance, Magnetic survey), aerial photography and high resolution artefact surveys. Specific aims were a better understanding of suburban topography and settlement dynamics of this coastal landscape from Republican times to the early Medieval period. Some of the results are summarized here.
Geo-archaeological and geophysical operations
The team studied the environmental setting of a series of Roman villas and farms (3rd century BC to 6th century AD) in the rural territory of the coastal colony Potentia. The purpose was to collect more data about the factors that played a role in the implantation and to understand the sustainability of the changing landscape for intensive Roman settlement and agricultural exploitation. The sampled sites, located via earlier UGent surveys (2002-2003), were investigated in relation to aspects such as the proximity and quality of nearby water and arable land, the presence of local building materials, geomorphological positioning, access to transport routes etc. Depending on the landscape type in which the sites occur, different natural and cultural factors played a role in the implantation of the sites. Sites on the foot slopes and hill crests were normally farms where agricultural activities, such as viticulture, were practiced, much helped by the exposition to the sun and the well-drained soil. Environmental and topographical factors like the availability of (flowing) water, the soil type and the inclination of the area were important for the choice of a settlement location. This research proves that rather leveled micro-areas were preferred and that the availability of water, especially drinkable flowing water, was much appreciated. Additional observations were made regarding the character, intensity and development of Roman viticulture and oleoculture.
Fig. 2 Magnetic survey in the suburban area of the Roman colony of Potentia.
In collaboration with a team from the German company Eastern Atlas, a series of geophysical surveys were undertaken in the surroundings of the Roman colony of Potentia. Magnetic surveys (Fig.1) were achieved with the objective of locating and mapping remains of subsurface archaeological features in the suburban area of the colony. Aerial photography, conducted by team director Prof. Frank Vermeulen, had revealed various building structures in the known necropoleis in the West and South of the colony. The geophysical surveys confirmed that both roads leaving town respectively from the Westgate and the Southgate were flanked by a series of funerary monuments, as more visible parts of large cemeteries lying immediately exta-muros near the town (Fig. 2). The magnetic survey was accompanied by augering to prove the predicted location of buried features.
GPR surveys were also successfully undertaken on a number of rural sites. In particular on the so-called Colle Burchio site, NW from Potentia, it was possible to reveal with clear detail a number of building structures and peripheral anomalies connected to this late Republican site (Fig. 3)
Fig. 3 Magnetic survey interpretation in the zone West of the Westgate of Potentia (blue) . In red the decumanus maximus and a series of monuments in the extramural area.
Fig. 4 GPR system consisting of six 500 MHz antennas towed behind an ATV. The prism is mounted on the mobile platform to allow continuous tracking by a robotic total station.
Artefact surveys
The 2012 artefact survey (Fig. 4) has achieved success in the task of sampling with a very intense methodology several sites in the surroundings of Potentia. The survey results help to elucidate the character and date of part of the rural population in the exploitation strategy of Potentia’s countryside. The application of a grid-walking methodology permitted to define site boundaries and presence of different activity clusters according to quantitative data, mainly from the information of the building materials (Fig. 5). The count and weight of this kind of artefacts offers also a key to understand the destruction of the surface assemblages, in relation with the presence or absence of structures in the buried archaeological layers.
Fig. 5 The PVS team during artefact survey on the site of Casa Apis.
Fig. 6 Distribution map of the ceramic building material at site Casa Apis. Several concentration zones with different composition of surface material indicate a Roman settlement with several units or buildings.
Fig. 7 Villa Montarice : antefix with palm decoration (Late Republican).
Artefact studies on the surface material showed that among the (re-)surveyed sites, three of them turned out to be mainly Late Republican (2nd-1st centuries BC) (Fig. 6) and thus basic for the study of the earliest Roman colonization in the lower Potenza valley. In this manner, the association of the ceramic finds of the previous excavations with those of the new surveys becomes crucial for the dating and the identification of the nature of these early sites. This increased knowledge of the chronology of the pottery finds was also useful for the characterization of ‘longue durée’ sites: especially the Casa Apis site yielded material from several main periods, starting with protohistoric and Republican times over Imperial and late Antique to the Lombard or even Carolingian period.
Stone material studies
During the campaign a preliminary analysis was achieved of the decorative stones from the middle valley urban centre of Roman Trea. This included a re-valuation of materials collected during earlier urban surveys and in particular an assessment of the different rock types used for the embellishment of the town in order to provide some basic answers about the ancient trade of decorative stone in the region and the influence on regional building traditions during the Roman Imperial era. After the macroscopic characterisation of the 869 fragments of decorative stone collected in the forum area of Trea, it is clear that a wide variety of stone types were used to embellish the town, including different varieties of the most expensive types of decorative stone used and traded in the Roman period. These so-called coloured marbles (Fig. 7), that were imported mainly from the eastern Mediterranean, can be identified as Africano (Teos, Turkey), Pavonazzetto (Iscehisar, Turkey), Breccia Corallina (Verzirhan, Turkey), Portasanta (Chios, Greece), Breccia di Sciro or Breccia di Settebasi (Skyros, Greece), Fior di Pesco (Eretria, Greece), Rosso Antico (Tainaron, Greece), Giallo Antico (Chemtou, Tunesia), and Cipollino Verde (Karystos, Greece).
Fig. 8 Overview of the different types of so-called coloured marbles found at Trea.