Patrick Monsieur

The Potenza Valley Survey: Preliminary Report on Field Campaign 2002

This contribution presents the fourth report about the on-going survey project of Ghent University in the Adriatic valley of the River Potenza (Marches, Italy). The project investigates the settlement history of the valley, essentially between 1000 BC and AD 1000. In 2003 substantial results in the middle and lower valley have been obtained with the help of remote sensing techniques, while the field surveys, geo-archaeological operations and study of surface finds have focussed on the protohistoric and Roman occupation of the coastal area. Quite spectacular were survey results on and around three Roman towns in the valley, contributing to the topographical knowledge of urbanisation in this part of Italy.

Transport amphorae Lamboglia 2 and Dressel 6A: Italy and/or Dalmatia? Some clarifications

After nearly 30 years of study and research on Roman amphorae from Adriatic Italy and 10 years after our last summary,1 we believe it is time to re-address the issue of the production of containers used for the wine trade.2 Our contributions, appearing in Italian and French journals, have had limited circulation in the Anglophone world, allowing for some debatable historical-economic reconstructions, and particularly one in this journal (vol. 22, 2009),3 with the risk that they might be accepted without proper discussion.4 In that article, central Dalmatia was said to have played a pioneering, primary role in the production and export of Republican wine amphorae (Lamboglia 2) in the Mediterranean, an idea which the same author has recently reiterated,5 while “any other productions of Lamboglia 2 that eventually occurred on either side of the Adriatic would have been on a much smaller scale and traded within a regional area or in smaller numbers”.6 These conclusions do not seem to take into sufficient consideration either the reality of the discoveries of production centres in Italy or the quantity of intact amphorae found during the early phases of several reclamation and drainage projects, thanks to which typo-chronological seriations have been improved.7

Fish bones and amphorae: evidence for the production and consumption of salted fish products outside the Mediterranean region

Production de garum et salsamenta bien connue dans le monde mediterraneen et atlantique. Largement exportee au Ier s. Mais de plus en plus on decouvre un nombre important de varietes de sauces de poissons divers dans les provinces du N (Belgique, Pays Bas) ou en Mer Rouge. Peut-on parler d’artisanat ? Ou ces salaisons se font-elles a une echelle plus industrielle ? Le contenant est inconnu : caisse en bois ou amphore recyclee. Mais la consommation peut tres bien n’etre que locale au IIe-IIIe s jusqu’a une resurgence du commerce de salaisons au Bas Empire

The role of overseas export and local consumption demand in the development of viticulture in central Adriatic Italy (200 BC – AD 150) : the case of the Ager Potentinus and the wider Potenza valley

The history of Italy’s wine industry between the end of the Second Punic War (218–201bc) and the High Imperial period (late 1st–2nd century ad) has long been described in terms of a boom-and-bust cycle, driven mainly by overseas exports and provincial import replacement.1 In a now classic narrative, Rome’s progressive conquest of theMediterranean in theLateRepublicanperiod (200– 30bc) generated enormous markets in both East and West that consisted not only of Roman colonists andmilitarymen on campaign, but also of local elites, keen to emulate thenew fashions, habits and status symbols introduced in their regions by Italian merchants and businessmen. This very favourable conjuncture offered financially robust farmers and other entrepreneurial individuals in central Italy the opportunity to specialize in the production of highly profitable ‘cash crops’ such as grapes (and olives), and thus to intensify their cultivation through the introduction of a comprehensive system of more systematic land management. Viticulture in particular was in that context a highly remunera-