House, land and place : a re-evaluation of central Adriatic communities (sixth to first centuries BC)

• Main Author: Sterry, Martin
• Published: University of Leicester 2010
• Subjects: 936.03
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.601377

This thesis seeks to investigate the diversity and breadth of landscapes as experienced in everyday life in Adriatic central Italy during the sixth to first centuries BC. This was a crucial period of change in central east Italy (modern Abruzzo and Le Marche) with the emergence of states and the expansion of Roman imperial power which led to the annexation and the absorption of Iron Age groups. Through examination of both fieldwalking survey and excavation data this study examines the different aspects of life - the construction of identities, households and communities the relationship between people and the land and the biographies of different places. Four trajectories are pursued: A re-evaluation of household living through synthesis of all available evidence for housing and settlements. A study of changing land-use practices using the data from intensive field-walking projects. Investigation into how cemeteries and sanctuaries were created, used and re-used. A GIS-based study of local patterns of production, distribution and consumpution through detailed analysis of ceramic fabrics and forms collected from survey. New tools for the implementation of Correspondence Analysis in GIS are devloped and existing methods for thresholding are adapted to allow for the analysis of the inherent variability in the data in terms of the pottery forms, fabrics, relationships and associations found in and between survey scatters. The results provide new insights into the declining role of local community structures as a result of the growth of individual households, the development of new attitudes to property, land ownership and ways of farming, and the emergence of more concrete and hierarchical identities.