The historical significance of Frattesina (original) (raw)
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The paper focuses on one of the most important fluvial settlement of the northern Italian Late Bronze Age: Frattesina di Fratta Polesine (Rovigo, NE Italy). In the specialized literature, it is better known for several exotica findings and raw materials (Baltic amber from northern Europe and ivory, ostrich-eggs and Mycenaean-style pottery from eastern Mediterranean), and for advanced, and elaborate pyrotechnologies (first of all metallurgy and glass-making). Recently the relationship between the settlement and a palaeo-branch of the Po River (named Po di Adria”) during the Bronze Age has been partially investigated. Nobody has questioned the relevance of the fluvial placement of Frattesina, which was also not far from the second longest Italian river (i.e. Adige) and from the ancient Northern Adriatic coast (about 40 km). These must be considered “natural” routes, which justified the role of Frattesina as the most ancient site with evidence of systematic connection between the Aegean and/or Levantine areas and continental Europe through the Adriatic Sea. This northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea often acted in history as a gateway oriented towards central and northern Europe.
Mobile elites at Frattesina: flows of people in a Late Bronze Age 'port of trade' in northern Italy
Antiquity, 2019
Following a mid twelfth-century BC demographic crisis, Frattesina, in northern Italy, arose as a prominent hub linking continental Europe and the Mediterranean, as evidenced by the remarkable variety of exotic materials and commodities discovered at the site. Debate persists, however, about the extent to which migrants influenced the foundation and development of Frattesina. The authors present the results of strontium isotope analyses, which suggest significant migration to the site, particularly of elites, mostly from within a 50km radius. Among these non-indigenous people, the authors identify a ‘warrior-chief’, whom they interpret as representing a new, more hierarchical society.
Padusa 55 (2019): 67-86, 2020
We present 15 new 14C dates for copper smelting sites in the Trentino, together with 31 published dates for smelting sites in the region. Smelting may have already begun in the sixteenth century cal BC and continued until the ninth century cal BC. This suggests a new historical model, in which the twelfth-ninth centuries BC site of Frattesina, an important trans-shipment node between continental Europe and the Mediterranean and manufacturing site, is at the centre of the metals trade of the final Bronze Age and early Iron Age, rather than subsidiary to Etruria mineraria. Frattesina uses copper from the southern Alps, which is traded to peninsular Italy but also to Greece (probably as finished artefacts), while the metal production of Etruria mineraria is seen to be rather less important.
Early Iron Age Communities of Southern Italy
2015
The current article analyzes two aspects of cultural and material interaction between Greek and indigenous populations in Northern Calabria during the 8th c. B.C. The analysis outlines a local production of Oinotrian-Euboean pottery and the appearance of the earliest Corinthian imported ceramics from the Middle Geometric II and Late Geometric periods at the indigenous site of Timpone della Motta, close to present day Francavilla Marittima in Northern Calabria and other indigenous sites in the nearby Sibaritide. Traditionally, the Timpone della Motta has been regarded as a central and important indigenous settlement from the end of the 9th c. B.C and its size and importance increased during the course of the first half of the 8th c. B.C. The importance of the site is reflected in the construction on the summit of large monumental hut structures that seem to have had a ritual function, and in a rapidly expanding necropolis in the nearby Macchiabate area. Until recently, the material culture of the site pointed to an almost exclusively indigenous presence with only a few occasional imported objects, mainly Corinthian Late Geometric ceramics, which have rightly been taken as evidence for direct or indirect sporadic contact between the indigenous population and the Greeks. The foundation of the Greek colony of Sybaris, circa 12 km to the southeast of Francavilla Marittima, became a turning point for the indigenous settlements of the Sibaritide.
Recent researches have demonstrated both from the archaeological and historical point of view the belonging of Comacchio (Ferrara, Italy) to the mostly unknown picture of the formation and development of new settlements that characterize the upper Adriatic Sea between the 6 th and 10 th century AD. The importance of Comacchio as a new town, able to take a fundamental role in the management of the trading relationships on a Mediterranean scale, has to be analysed in connection with the birth of other new urban settlements.
Settlements and pottery. Local versus long-distance trade in Mid-Adriatic Italy (4th-8th c.)
Goranka LIPOVAC VRKLJAN Bartul ŠILJEG Ivana OŽANIĆ ROGULJIĆ Ana KONESTRA (eds), Roman Pottery and Glass Manufactures. Production and Trade in the Adriatic Region. PROCEEDINGS OF THE 3rd INTERNATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLOQUIUM, 2017
During the last 15 years archaeological excavations and surveys conducted in the main Adriatic ports gave us a new quantitative perspective for the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Ravenna and Classe played a fundamental role in the creation of a new economic system that laid the foundations for the following political assets. If we adhere to old-fashioned historical theories, the final act of Late Antiquity is in fact during the 7th c., caused by the Arab invasions. Certainly, the idea that north-western Europe was cut off from the newly-Islamic Mediterranean from the 7th c. AD, thereby causing it to develop a dynamic economic focus within the Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne, has been comprehensively disproved not only by archaeology but also by a more inquisitive reading of contemporary documents. In this paper I will try to use the main results from the study of pottery in central Italy and particularly in the Mid-Adriatic region as a mean for understanding the dynamics that linked the two sides of the failing Roman Empire and as a bridge between the Eastern and the Western Mediterranean.
TMA supplement 3, 2024
In academic literature on the founding period of Greek colonies, from the Early Iron Age to the beginning of the Archaic period, the common explanation for Greek settlements on the coasts of Southern Italy has been to control and exploit the territory. However, the specific dynamics of this exploitation have rarely been detailed. Additionally, little attention has been given to whether indigenous peoples were already utilizing the territory for various production activities beyond dry farming and livestock during the protohistoric period. This paper will use archaeological data to explore the economy and local environment of the Sibaritide, focusing on reconstructing the artisanal organization within these settlements.