Francesca Carboni

Inspecting the transformation of Roman settlements in the Upper Potenza Valley (Marche region) across Late Antiquity and into the Early Medieval era

The following analysis shows the changes occurred in the settlement patterns in the upper Potenza river valley (MC, Marche region) during the transition period between Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages. This analysis is mainly based on the results of a geoarchaeological project, which has been carried out by a team from Ghent University since 2000. The review of the pottery collected during the fi eld survey has allowed for a better defined chronology of the last phase of occupation of the rural sites identifi ed in the sample zone, located within an intermediate basin between the Umbria-Marche Apennines and a lateral dorsal ridge, in areas dominated by the hilltops of Monte Primo and Monte Castel Santa Maria. For some of these sites, it is now possible to ascertain a continuity of life up to the end of the seventh century and further into the Middle Ages. La presente analisi illustra le trasformazioni delle modalita insediative avvenute nel periodo di transizione fra la tarda antichita e il medioevo nell’alta valle del fi ume Potenza (MC, Marche). Essa si basa sui risultati del progetto condotto con metodo geo-archeologico da un gruppo di ricerca dell’Universita di Ghent, dal 2000. La revisione del materiale ceramico raccolto nel corso delle ricognizioni ha consentito di defi nire meglio le ultime fasi di occupazione dei siti rurali identifi cati nella zona campione in questione, posizionata all’interno del bacino intramontano posto fra l’Appennino umbro-marchigiano e una dorsale montuosa laterale, dominata dalle cime del Monte Primo e del Monte Santa Maria. Per alcuni di questi siti e stato, infatti, possibile accertare una continuita di occupazione estesa fi no al VII secolo e oltre, in eta medievale.

Investigating the Impact of Roman Urbanisation on the Landscape of the Potenza Valley

This paper reports on a set of intensive interdisciplinary field operations by a Belgian team of Ghent University in 2007 in the Marche region of central Adriatic Italy. Most of the interventions, comprising geophysical prospections, geomorphologic observations, aerial photography, surface artifact surveys, excavations, topographic surveys and pottery studies, aim at a better understanding of the developing Romanisation of this part of Picenum and the rapid urbanization of the area from the late Republic onwards. Quite spectacular are the results of combined remote sensing work on such towns as the coastal colony Potentia and the interior municipium Trea , with unusually detailed mapping of the majority of public and private town structures. In Potentia these intrasite and peri-urban surveys are now also being checked in the field with focused excavations on a town gate and an amphora workshop. Also important are original contributions towards a better comprehension of the townlandscape nexus, involving the discovery of roads, cemeteries, aqueducts and quarries discovered near the four Roman cities. Finally new observations concerning the pre-Roman situation of centrally organized settlement and its links with the establishment of more Roman style towns, add much to the debate about the relatively late urbanization of this Adriatic region.