Theme:
2. Archaeological Sciences, Humanities and the Digital era: Bridging the Gaps
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Towards the living city through time: Interdisciplinary approaches to ancient civilisations of Central Italy
Content:
The Etruscan cities of Tarquinia and Vulci have both been examined over a long period of time exhibiting phases of foundation, resilience, development and decline. Science@Tarquinia is an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Milan and the University of Cambridge, alongside eleven other institutions, where humanistic and scientific methods have been brought together in one unified approach, drawing on geoarchaeology, human remains, animal bones, plant remains, aDNA and isotopes. This work has enhanced our knowledge of ritual process, complemented by the study of rural settlement, site formation processes, ancestry, mobility, health, diet and violence. New research projects in Vulci have reconsidered different phases of intense building activities, (re)shaping of the urban and social structure, or monumentalization of public buildings that alternate with contraction of the settlement area, (partial) abandonment, and crisis mostly related to changing geopolitical and social conditions. Different types of historical and archaeological resilience and persistence have been highlighted by interdisciplinary contributions including archaeometry, prosopography, zooarchaeology and geophysics.
The session aims to address a basic question: how can we describe and model long-term change and transformation in Central Italy by integrating different datasets, structural and biological, both in the cities and their necropolises and in their relation to the wider Mediterranean? How can we model social change with archaeological data?
By combining the two complementary approaches to these two cities we have perhaps for the first time, a more comprehensive understanding of the key life forces underlying the biography of two of the most ancient European cities. We invite other projects to make presentations, alongside our own, that contribute to this interdisciplinary, comparative road towards a deeper understanding of the life of Italy’s ancient civilisations.
Keywords:
Civilisation, interdisciplinary, foundation, resilience, Central Italy, Etruria
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Simon Stoddart (United Kingdom) 1,2
Co-organisers:
Giovanna Bagnasco (Italy) 3
Simona Carosi (Italy) 4
Mariachiara Franceschini (Germany) 5
Paul Pasieka (Germany) 6
Affiliations:
1. University of Cambridge
2. University of Kiel
3. University of Milan
4. Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la provincia di Viterbo e per l'Etruria meridionale
5. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
6. Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
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