The field system of Gricignano d'Aversa (Southern Italy) and the agrarian impact in the Piana Campana, ca. 3900 cal BP
Introduction
Until 1980, the date of the rescue excavation at the site of Palma Campania/Tirone (Albore Livadie, 1981), destroyed by the Pomici di Avellino eruption (PdA, 3885–3830 cal BP, Passariello et al., 2009; Sulpizio et al., 2010a, 2010b), the Piana Campana had not started to reveal the wealth of information about its prehistoric landscape (e.g., Radmilli, 1978). This discovery was the start of a rapid growth in awareness of the potential of the territory, as indicated by the ensuing series of publications and conferences discussing the interactions between humans and volcanic activity, in the Late Holocene Campanian context (Albore Livadie, 1986, 1992, 1999a; Guzzo and Peroni, 1998). A tighter cooperation between archaeologists, volcanologists and geologists was also stimulated, in the same years, by Sigurdsson et al. (1982) concerning the 79 A.D. Pompeii eruption.
In recent years, accurate archaeological research has brought to light a full range of traces of prehistoric human occupation, including agrarian features (Marzocchella, 1998; Albore Livadie et al., 1998b; Nava et al., 2007). The particularly good preservation derives from the growth in thickness of the sedimentary cover, due to the occurrence of major and minor volcanic events originating from Campi Flegrei caldera and from Somma-Vesuvius, during the 5th and 4th millennium cal BP.
This paper presents, for the first time, the comprehensive pattern of the Early Bronze Age agrarian field system recovered under the PdA Vesuvian eruption, in the building area of the U.S. Navy support site at Gricignano d'Aversa (Caserta) (GR/Nss). The general outline of the field system extending over 60 ha is described, and statistical analysis of the field sizes is provided. A re-evaluation of formerly published pollen data (Vivent and Albore Livadie, 2001) gives a coherent result of intensive local human landscape exploitation. The GR/Nss evidence, set in the context of the other Piana Campana archaeological and environmental data, provides a clear-cut image of the widespread environmental impact generated by the shifting agricultural strategy adopted by these prehistoric human communities.
Section snippets
Regional setting
The site of GR/Nss is located in the middle of the Piana Campana (Campania region), 1500 m NW of the modern village of Gricignano d'Aversa (Caserta): 40°59'34″ N; 14°14′54″ E (Fig. 1). The dwelling complex was built between 1995 and 2005, covering an area of ∼120 ha (Fig. 2), around the traditional locality of Monticelli (IGM map 184 I NW, 1990).
The area of GR/Nss is homogeneously characterized by the Phlegraean and Vesuvian pyroclastic deposits that affected the Piana Campana at least since
Chronology
The agrarian landscape at GR/Nss was sealed by the PdA eruption. It appears as an almost continuous sequence of open plough furrows, shallow water gullies and low banks. No precise seasonal indications have been provided to date, but evidence including gravid goats, cereal spikelets, grapestones, acorns, almonds, hazels, clear bramble bushes with (only) one possible blackberry, coming from destroyed settlements (Nola: Vecchio and Albore Livadie, 2002; Albore Livadie et al., 2011; Afragola:
Excavation policy at GR/Nss site
From 1995 to 1998 the exploration was held by Amodio Marzocchella of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Campania (SBA Campania; Marzocchella, 1998); from 1998 to 2005 different archaeologists of the Soprintendenza Speciale al Museo Preistorico ed Etnografico L. Pigorini di Roma (SS Pigorini) were in charge of the recovery of the pre-protohistorical remains (Fugazzola Delpino et al., 2003, 2007) (cf. Fig. 2): Alessandro Vanzetti was among them (Fugazzola Delpino et al., 2003, 2007
Agrarian features
At Gr/Nss the agrarian landscape was preserved in a remarkable state under the PdA eruption. It shows a considerable local impact, as an uninterrupted sequence of fields stretches over the whole area. Some recurrent features can be identified, all with a SW–NE orientation (Fig. 5).
- a
Elongated parallel furrows resulting from ploughing: ploughing crest interdistances ∼ 0.35 m.
- b
Shallow gullies (Fig. 5a) border groups of furrows; their role should be connected with water distribution and drainage. The
Regional discussion
Traces of ploughed fields and infrastructure are often encountered in excavations cutting through the PdA deposits, inside the Piana Campana. They are rarely well published and generally barely quoted in preliminary reports, without much detail (e.g., De Caro, 2001, 2002; Nava et al., 2007). This hinders the acquisition of a comprehensive view of the human agrarian impact.
Conclusions
The archaeological research in the 120 ha of GR/Nss resulted in the systematic recovery of data about human occupation bracketed between the AMS and PdA eruptions. The ploughed surface sealed by the PdA eruption appears as a coherent agrarian system of about 60 ha of fields, crossed by a cart track. This is the widest field extent identified in Central and Southern Italy, and the oldest comprehensive agrarian system so far reconstructed for Italy. The resulting pattern is much different from
Acknowledgments
We thank the AIQUA conference organizers for their interest in the subject and their intention to develop the discussion between natural scientists and archaeologists, in order to tackle the complexity of the environmental transformations during the Holocene.
We are grateful to the Soprintendenti who provided authorizations and helped the development of the study: Maria Antonietta Fugazzola, Luigi La Rocca and Teresa Cinquantaquattro. Some colleagues have contributed to the discussion, helped in
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2019, Quaternary InternationalCitation Excerpt :This was due to their uneven preservation, as they were probably subject to differential deposition and erosion in relation to geomorphology, were then affected by pedogenetic processes and were further dissected by subsequent ploughing (cf. § 3.4 and § 3.6). This difficulty has brought some limitations to the present analysis, which is not based on the same extension studied for the published EBA field system (Saccoccio et al., 2013), but only on the negative and positive traces found inside the central and eastern part of the Gr/Nss area (SS Pigorini 1998–2005 excavations). The analyzed area corresponds to all the foundation trenches enclosed in a polygon of ca. 50 ha: the area sampled for this study therefore totals 3.8 ha, which represent a sample of 7.6% of the total 50 ha area (Fig. 3).
The effects of the Avellino Pumice eruption on the population of the Early Bronze age Campanian plain (Southern Italy)
2019, Quaternary InternationalCitation Excerpt :Intensive exploitation of the plain is attested by Dominique Vivent's study at the excavations at the Gricignano US Navy base that showed the predominance of Non Arboreal Pollen (NAP). In their discussion of Vivent's data, Saccoccio et al. (2013) commented that tree pollen values are generally lower before the Avellino Pumice eruption, whereas in the plain they increase after the eruption, probably due to the relocation of settlements to more easily defendable locations. They add that after the later AP1 episode, the arboreal pollen increases, reaching 28% and confirming a relative abandonment of the plain, matched by an increased settlement of the hills (Saccoccio et al., 2013: 90).