(2019) Modeling the Rise of the City: Early Urban Networks in Southern Italy, Frontiers in Digital Humanities 6.15 (original) (raw)
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during the last few decades a number of traditional disciplines among the humanities, such as history, art history, ancient history, archaeology and historical archaeology have witnessed a significant growth of interest in social network analysis, which had previously principally confined to the fields of anthropology, sociology and social geography. In particular, within archaeology various applications have shown that social network analysis can provide a useful set of theoretical and technical tools to answer a variety of spatial as well as social questions and more importantly a combination of the two. While a number of case studies with practical examples have concerned pre-historical or fully historical societies, the potential of social network analysis for the study of the emergence of complex polities has only been used as a metaphor for interpretation rather than an analytical tool.
Etruscan Studies, 2017
The digital turn in archaeology over the last decade has brought computer-based applications to bear on fundamental questions of the material past and has led to an increase in the number and sophistication of digital approaches. In their 2014 monographs, Francesca Fulminante and Emma Blake highlight innovative digital methodologies and use them to address two contested areas, Roman state formation and Italic identity. Newly recovered material from survey and excavation from across the Italian peninsula, more accessible old material, and the everimproving power of the computer have improved the feasibility of synthetic, data rich studies drawing on a wide variety of information. The two monographs reviewed here bring impressive bodies of evidence to their studies while using computer-based approaches, Fulminante’s GIS-based spatial and statistical analyses and Blake’s social network analysis. While the methods differ, both monographs speak to the great benefit (and occasional pitfalls) inherent in this new age of “big data.” Both authors push studies of Roman Italy in exciting new directions: further into the past, linking Bronze Age material to questions related to the Roman period, and into the future, through their innovative digital techniques. These works presage an exciting new vein of scholarship, and both these ambitious monographs are significant contributions to our understanding of the early phases of Roman and Italian development.
Internet Archaeology, 2015
This article describes the methodology of a two-year research project to create an analytical database and GIS of 583 (proto-)urban centres on the Italian peninsula that existed between 350 BCE and 300 CE. The article is linked to the project's data files, deposited with the ADS, and is essential reading for users of the database. The research design, format and functionality of the database are described in conjunction with the challenges encountered during the methodological development of the project. The relevance of the project to the historical development of urbanism on the Italian peninsula during the period under study is outlined. An overview of the project's results provides an insight into the potential of the research methodology. It is relevant to anyone interested in ancient urbanism, Italian and Roman archaeology, or in the methods and results of combining ancient textual and archaeological legacy data with geospatial data. Keywords: higher-order settlements; towns; cities; proto-urban; Roman urbanism; pre-Roman Italy; Italian peninsula; analytical database; GIS Archive: ROMURBITAL-an archaeological database of higher-order settlements on the Italian peninsula (350 BCE to 300 CE)
The book under review is in line with the growing popularity of Social Network Analysis in archaeology. The Mediterranean region in particular is witnessing a surge in studies on ancient networks and their significance for cultural development in different regions and periods. The importance of maritime connectivity has eloquently been made clear by N. Horden and P. Purcell,1 C. Broodbank2 and several others. Social Network Analysis is emerging as a powerful tool to quantitatively map and evaluate connectivity and its effects on material culture.3 Time will tell whether this popularity of Social Network Analysis constitutes a veritable paradigm shift in the study of the ancient Mediterranean. But it does lead to new perspectives on established fields in archaeology, of which this book is an example.
2010
be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the editors of this book. 6. nkn y k-nn nn n n y 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The hegemony of Sybaris 6.3 Iron Age indigenous settlement expansion and early indigenous-Greek encounters 6.4 A colonial enclave and its wider context: Taras and the Salento peninsula 6.5 Questioning early Greek colonial impact Box 6.1 Greeks and natives at L'Amastuola 7. nn bnzn n p 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Archaic urbanization in the Salento peninsula 7.3 Urbanization and early Roman colonization in the Pontine region 7.4 Conclusion 8. nf, bnzn n n xpnn 8.1 Roman conquest and colonization 8.2 Rural settlement 8.3 Urban development 8.4 Rural infill and the expansion of agriculture 8.5 Local variability in rural trends 8.6 Comparing rural settlement patterns in Central and South Italy 8.7 Exploring a macro-regional explanation 8.8 Epilogue: late Republican agriculture and the city of Rome 9. p-n pv ppv 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Methodological advances 9.3 Interpretations 9.4 Final remarks Bibliographic references Index Colour plates pf This volume synthesizes the results of a Dutch landscape-archaeological project in central and southern Italy, called Regional Pathways to Complexity (RPC). Although the project itself started in 1997 and formally ended in 2001, it is correctly viewed as only the latest in a long series of archaeological research projects by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology (GIA) and the Archaeological Centre of the Free University of Amsterdam (ACVU) in Italy. Accordingly, this volume synthesizes studies undertaken since the early 1980s as well as others conducted in the years since the RPC project ended. 1 A study of central and southern Italy between the end of the Bronze Age and the end of the Roman Republican period presents several major challenges: the size of the region, the length of the period under investigation, and especially the difficulty to investigate effectively the long-term processes operating at this time in this area, processes that involved the growing complexity of indigenous societies, and the transformation of traditional rural and pastoral ways of life into urbanism during the period of 'external' Greek and Roman colonization. Our purpose was not only to synthesize the results of the fieldwork, but also to present interpretations of and reflections on these processes, the approaches we used to investigate them, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the theoretical models applied by ourselves and others to explain our findings. This is why the introductory and concluding chapters contain extensive discussions of methodology. It is hoped that the RPC experience, once published, will be of interest to others pursuing similar studies. f bk Chapter 1 introduces the RPC project itself and provides an outline of its methodology. The chapter discusses, firstly, the integration of settlement archaeology, environmental research, ethnography and ceramics studies; and, secondly, the problems presented by, on the one hand, systematic biases in the archaeological record and, on the other, by our attempt to compare differently constituted regional archaeological records. The remainder of the volume is organised into two parts, the first (chapters 2 to 4) being arranged chronologically by region, the second (chapters 5 to 8) chronologically by theme. A final chapter pulls together the main threads and conclusions of our argument. The first few chapters deal with each of the three RPC regions in turn (chapter 2: Pontine region, chapter 3: Salento isthmus, chapter 4: Sibaritide). Each chapter begins with a reconstruction of the principal geographical and environmental factors that influenced the forms of human habitation and land use. This is followed by a chronologically ordered discussion of actual settlement configurations and land use patterns, based on comparisons of the various field surveys and other settlement data. Each chapter sets out to describe the intra-regional differentiation in settlement and land use in relation to geography and environment. Together, these chapters provide a general context for the thematic and chronological comparison of the three RPC study regions in part II. The later chapters deal with the major changes that occurred in our three regions between the Bronze Age and the Roman Imperial period. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the protohistorical phases, with a particular focus on the formation of proto-urban centres and 'rural infill' of the landscape prior to Greek 1 All Dutch research up to 2005 in the three study areas has been included in the current study, as well as important publications up to 2008. or Roman colonization. Chapter 6 looks more closely at the earliest colonizations, investigating the impact of Greek colonization on indigenous settlement and society and questioning the presumed political and cultural dominance of the Greek colonial city-states. Chapter 7 focuses on Archaic urbanisation processes in Salento and the Pontine region. Chapter 8 explores the phenomenon of rural expansion that accompanied the process of urbanization in Italy in the Hellenistic (or Roman Republican) period, and in particular in the late 4 th-3 rd centuries BC; it closes with an epilogue dedicated to further transformations during the late Republican period. knwn The RPC project was one of three large archaeological projects that received funding from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research in 1997, in the context of the programme 'Settlement and Landscape in Archaeology' (NWO grant no. 250-09-100). We are extremely grateful to have been given the opportunity to pursue this line of research, as well as for NWO's patience when this final synthetic volume was delayed. Likewise, the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) has steadfastly supported RPC project staff and students of the participating institutions over the years by hosting meetings and study visits. We are especially grateful for the Institute's sponsorship of this publication, which together with smaller subsidies by GIA and ACVU made possible both proper editing of the English text, and the use of colour for the maps and photographs. Several colleagues from both participating institutions have been closely involved in the research for many years, and we wish to acknowledge our debt to their work, enthusiasm and expertise: Dr. Bert Nijboer for sharing with us his extensive knowledge of protohistoric Italy, Prof. Douwe Yntema for his expertise on Apulian archaeology and supervision of the dissertations of Veenman and Mater, Prof. em. Marianne Kleibrink for first directing the excavation programs at Satricum and Francavilla and then sharing her profound knowledge of the archaeology of Latium and the Sibaritide, Dr. Jan Sevink for his supervision of Van Joolen's dissertation, and Dr. Jan Delvigne for his supervision of students and especially for the enjoyable and insightful field trips at which we learned a lot about the past and present landscapes of the Pontine Region and the Sibaritide. Other colleagues contributed toward the success of the RPC project through their participation in a 3-day conference organised by the
Finding the Limits of the Limes, 2019
In Roman landscapes, the particular sites defined as secondary settlements (also known as vici/villages, minor centres, agglomérations secondaires and/or stationes/mansiones) have played an 'intermediary' role between the cities and other rural structures (villae/farms), linked to medium-and long-distance economic and commercial trajectories. The aim of this paper is to apply a multi-scalar approach to model their long-term spatial relationships and connectivity with the Mediterranean exchange network. On the macro-scale, we have analysed a sample of 219 reviewed sites to understand the diachronic trends and spatial dynamics of attraction/proximity to significant elements of the landscape such as towns, roads, rivers and coastline. The Ombrone Valley (Tuscany, Italy) represents a micro-scale case study of a complex system, in which the imported pottery (amphorae, African Red Slip ware, ingobbiata di rosso) found in the vicus/mansio of Santa Cristina in Caio, the Roman villa of La Befa and the town of Siena (Saena Iulia) provided diagnostic 'macroeconomic' perspectives. The results show how the secondary settlements occupied a nodal position in the Roman landscape in terms of resilience (long period of occupation until the Early Middle Ages) and spatial organization with a close relationship to natural and anthropic infrastructures and trade functions linked to Mediterranean routes.
Verhagen P., Joyce J., Groenhuijzen M. (eds) Finding the Limits of the Limes. Computational Social Sciences. 2019, Springer, Cham, pp. 191-214, 2019
Bertoldi S., Castiglia G., Castrorao Barba A. (2019) A Multi-scalar Approach to Long-Term Dynamics, Spatial Relations and Economic Networks of Roman Secondary Settlements in Italy and the Ombrone Valley System (Southern Tuscany): Towards a Model?. In: Verhagen P., Joyce J., Groenhuijzen M. (eds) Finding the Limits of the Limes. Computational Social Sciences. Springer, Cham ABSTRACT: In Roman landscapes, the particular sites defined as secondary settlements (also known as vici/villages, minor centres, agglomérations secondaires and/or stationes/mansiones) have played an ‘intermediary’ role between the cities and other rural structures (villae/farms), linked to medium- and long-distance economic and commercial trajectories. The aim of this paper is to apply a multi-scalar approach to model their long-term spatial relationships and connectivity with the Mediterranean exchange network. On the macro-scale, we have analysed a sample of 219 reviewed sites to understand the diachronic trends and spatial dynamics of attraction/proximity to significant elements of the landscape such as towns, roads, rivers and coastline. The Ombrone Valley (Tuscany, Italy) represents a micro-scale case study of a complex system, in which the imported pottery (amphorae, African Red Slip ware, ingobbiata di rosso) found in the vicus/mansio of Santa Cristina in Caio, the Roman villa of La Befa and the town of Siena (Saena Iulia) provided diagnostic ‘macroeconomic’ perspectives. The results show how the secondary settlements occupied a nodal position in the Roman landscape in terms of resilience (long period of occupation until the Early Middle Ages) and spatial organization with a close relationship to natural and anthropic infrastructures and trade functions linked to Mediterranean routes.
“Apulia’s Burning“ Predictive Models and Social Complexity
SESSION 13. MODELLING THE LANDSCAPE. FROM PREDICTIVITY TO POSTDICTIVITY, 2022
The objective of this presentation is to analyze the settlement dynamics that develop in Apulia during the Middle Bronze Age. Throughout southern Italy, in phases 1 and 2 of the Middle Bronze Age (also known as the Early Middle Bronze Age) there is a proliferation in the number of settlements, which tend to occupy all ecological belts -from the coast to the plains to the hills and mountains - and to become increasingly stable. Between the end of the Middle Bronze Age 2 and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age 3 there is an impressive series of siege/destruction events and abandonment of settlements. The new settlements show instead a predilection for the coast or in a para littoral position. Post-modern interpretations of the phenomenon tend to downplay social inequality and internal hierarchical organization among the concauses (Cazzella- Recchia 2021). If archaeology is political action (McGuire 2008), the need to restore social complexity to events will not turn up its nose. In the detail of the case, southern Italy from the Middle Bronze Age onwards, - given the exposure to models, ideas and social forms coming from the Eastern Mediterranean¬- is characterized as an accelerator of the hierarchical process (Peroni 1969). Internal social competition, which is configured in local elites with stable social differentiation, is exacerbated by an environmental crisis that characterizes the entire Mediterranean in the Middle Bronze Age: a period of intense drought (Primavera et al. 2015). The environmental crisis may have catalyzed the struggle for access to and management of resources. The contemporary presence of monumental burials (Orlando 1995) contributes to return a tangible sign of an increasingly "anthropized" landscape. The settlements are equipped with powerful fortifications, for which it is assumed a function not only defensive, but also symbolic and self- representative of a "landscape of power" (Scarano 2017). The application of spatial models and analysis allows for the evaluation of different theories in relation to this phenomenon. The effectiveness of such models, however, depends on the data set available and the interpretation of the results obtained. For this reason, we will proceed to the use of different methodologies of investigation in order to reconstruct a picture as broad and complete as possible. On this basis, the probable area of influence of the various settlements will be determined. Specifically, the application of visibility analysis allows to estimate the area of influence of the various settlements and the importance that anthropic works, such as walls and burials, had in the definition of the landscape. For these reasons, will also be hypothesized and reconstructed the main paths of connection infra-site. The definition of the exploitation area of each settlement will be hypothesized based on catchment analysis referred to the travel times and costs of the various centers. The hierarchy between the settlements will be reconstructed on the basis of the integration between visibility areas, exploitation areas and archaeological evidence, such as burials, imported materials and extension of the settlements. The reconstructed model will not represent a definitive interpretative proposal, since it is based on partial data, but a first step in the research to calibrate the results of the application.
Comb cut from multiple pieces of deer antler and assembled with iron rivets. The word 'comb' is carved onto the surface in the Viking runic alphabet (copyright: Museum of Southwest Jutland); Segmented glass beads found in Ribe (copyright: The Museum of Southwest Jutland); Glass vessel sherds, beads and other finds from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar (copyright: Jason Hawkes).