The Monteverdi Field School in Archaeology

Fasti on Line, 2020

This report summarizes the first archaeological campaign (May-June 2018) at the medieval settlement of Castellaraccio of Monteverdi. The scope is to first identify the life span and activities of the castle and to understand the relationship of the hilltop with its immediate surroundings. The research will further determine the socioeconomic role that the castle played in this strategic area, positioned over farming land, a bridge and a major road that led inland from the coast to Siena. The presence and collaboration of a nearby ongoing excavation of earlier Etruscan and Roman settlements are the ideal conditions to address how the activities changed and transformed through time, adding another perspective to the current debates. This first season aimed to clear the castle from the collapse to expose its plan and date the life span of its occupation. Further clearing was also extended to the exterior of the castle to document the different wall techniques of the fortification. Only one area was opened over the most monumental part of the castle. The lack of medieval glazed pottery, except for a few fragments of undatable kitchenware, could indicate a pre-majolica settlement. While it is still premature to assess any date of occupation of the hilltop, it seems safe to establish that Castellaraccio belongs to the first incastel-lamento generation. The use of non-invasive techniques in the next campaign will help read the territory around the castle, along the Ombrone river and possibly to the nearby Cannicci valley. The medieval settlement of Castellaraccio lies about 30 km from Grosseto near the road that leads to Si-ena. It has never been studied. However, the countryside below the hilltop has been surveyed and excavated by the Soprintendenza in the late 1990s, providing a fascinating preview of the archaeological potential of the site. Here, in the valley, different production activities took place during the Etruscan, Roman and Medieval periods benefitting from a large-scale hydraulic system that controlled the waters. The fortuitous convergence of the imposing Ombrone river with its tributaries, the Lanzo and Gretano rivers, and major roads running through the area are among the many reasons that have continued to attract settlements and confirm the crucial position of the later castle. Altogether, this geographical position provides ideal conditions for production, settlement , and trade (fig.1). The inception of a joint project The first campaign in 2018 included a general survey of the hilltop and a small test trench on one of the two highest points of the ruins. The land belongs to the large estate of Monteverdi which overlooks the Om-brone River (fig. 2) and the valley where the sister project at Podere Cannicci saw its first campaign in 2017 fig.1

From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques., 2007

Author: Marta Luciani. Marta Luciani 2007: 'Archaeological Field Training for a Variety of Different Types of Sites: From the Near Eastern Tell to the Prehistoric Settlement Camp,' in From Concepts of the Past to Practical Strategies: The Teaching of Archaeological Field Techniques. Peter Ucko, Editor-in-Chief Qin Ling and Jane Hubert Editors. Commissioning Editor and General Editor: Sajid Rizvi. ISBN 9781872843704. London: Saffron, 2007. [Introduction] Reflection on archaeological field training in the Near East is usually scarce, even in the context of the larger and long-lasting field projects1. This is due to an array of circumstances, some of which are discussed below. By contrast, in prehistoric excavations, archaeological investigation methods − if not their teaching − are traditionally a matter of discussion. As the focus of this book is on archaeological field training in a variety of sites, and my own experience is mainly, though not exclusively, on activities within the framework of university research, my paper is written from this perspective. Furthermore, my examples will be drawn mainly from archaeological activities in the Near East, or Western Asia, more specifically Iraq, Syria and Turkey, with some comparisons with Italy, as my own research in the last 15 years has focused on this region of the world. In preparing this contribution I have kept a perspective based on personal experience, in order to attain a picture of field training which reflects reality in the Near East − however subjective − rather than norms. Rescue Archaeology University research in the Near East may be carried out in the framework of research-orientated projects, but it often happens to involve rescue archaeology. Salvage or rescue activities in the Near East have been known to take place both in urban and rural contexts. The best urban example is the investigation of the Martyrs’ Square and the Suq in downtown Beirut, Lebanon (Badre 1997; Ortali-Tarazi 1998-1999)2, carried out after the war in the second half of the 1990s, in order to investigate the destroyed city centre prior to the planned urban development. In the countryside, salvage and rescue research is mainly a consequence of the numerous hydraulic projects undertaken by Turkey, Syria and Iraq (for example, Mellink 1992; Bounni 1997; Abu al-Soof 1979). The latter have involved building artificial dams either on the major rivers, ie Tigris and Euphrates, or on their tributary courses, such as the Diyala, the Zab or the Habur which, once the dams were finished, f looded entire portions of the river valleys and their archaeological remains.3 The local governments have, therefore, launched intensive surface surveys and site excavations prior to the f looding, in order to acquire knowledge on the areas about to be submerged by water. These projects started at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, involving dozens of local and international teams. They have led to an enormous increase in our understanding of otherwise unknown regions in the Near East. Furthermore, being rescue activities (whether surveys or excavations), the projects were not focused on a single time period, thus providing an invaluable reference for all subsequent studies of a given region. At the same time, however, such extensive excavations, and the ensuing f looding of the sites by the waters of artificial lakes, have also caused the destruction of the archaeological record and its inaccessibility in entire districts of Western Asia. Two examples, both of dams developed on the Euphrates River on Syrian territory (Figure 1), may be used to make the point. On the so-called Euphrates bend, in the 1960s, the Al-Thawra Dam was built at the site of Tabqa, creating upstream Lake Assad. In more recent times, a new dam, Tishreen, was built further north on the Euphrates, forming a lake which reaches to the border with Turkey. Archaeological rescue operations along both segments of the river valley attest to the high amount of sites, mostly previously unknown, that have been surveyed, identified and subsequently excavated. It is important to stress, however, that since surface surveying has never had a systematic character in archaeological salvage projects, it is certain that mono-phase and/or f lat sites, off-site and less visible features must have remained underrepresented in all obtained maps, even those shown here. Although not by any means the only type of settlement to be encountered in the very diverse Near Eastern landscapes (see Wilkinson 2003), most often the marker of the settlement landscape is the multi-period stratified site, the artificial mound called tell in modern Arabic, the corresponding Farsi being tappah, Kurdish tepe, and Turkish hüyük. The peculiar shape of the landscape is mainly the result of two factors: … Follow links for further info on this book.

Archaeological Reports, 2002

2012

Location of site The remains of the Żejtun Roman Villa lie on the highest point of a long, somewhat flat ridge that stretches for about 1 km roughly in an east-west direction (Fig. 1). This point is located close to the east end of the ridge. Beyond Dun Lawrenz Degabriele Street that borders the Girls Secondary School grounds on the east side, this ridge starts dipping rather rapidly towards TasSilġ and Delimara, along the road leading to those destinations. The ridge dips slightly less rapidly to the north, beyond Luqa Briffa Street, even less rapidly to the south, beyond the Żejtun Bypass (Anton Buttigieg Street) while it maintains more or less the same altitude to the west up to Bir id-Deheb from where the ground starts rising again towards Gudja and the parish church of Ħal Għaxaq. The ground level of the Villa remains, therefore, is a couple of metres higher than that of the old parish church of Santa Katerina (the present St Gregory’s church) and considerably higher than that ...

2003

This class surveys the historiography, practices and contemporary issues seminal to the study of archaeology by the practicing archaeologist. There is a slight bias towards those practices used by archaeologists of the Classical Mediterranean region. The course is divided into three sections. After beginning with a review of the of the origins and rise of archaeology as a scientific discipline and its history, we turn to foundational practices used to gather information on an archaeological site. The course concludes with a look at some of the philosophical questions surrounding contemporary archaeology and its processes. Periodically class will constitute a lab in which you will gain hands-on practice in some of the basic techniques of archaeological analysis.

Mega Publishing House, 2017

This is not an ordinary MANUAL, in the sense most textbooks are. We do not have the vanity to produce general rules, to edit standards and procedures concerning an archaeological investigation. Starting with the middle of the 20th century many high quality books were written on this subject. This handbook reflects our experience within the ERASMUS + project: “From Theory to Practice - International Teaching in Field Archaeology in Roman Sarmizegetusa” - FIT in Archaeology (contract 2015-R001-KA203-015185), financed by European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme coordinated in Romania by National Agency for Community Programmes in the Field of Education and Vocational Training (ANPCDEFP). The project was coordinated by The National Museum of History of Transylvania from Cluj-Napoca, with four European universities as partners in this enterprise: Babeş-Bolyai University at Cluj-Napoca, University of Exeter, University of Viena and Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg. We would like to share our experience with whoever would be interested.

Late Antique Archaeology 9, 2013

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual "brill" typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.

As a response to the changing needs of society and as an anticipation for the carriers of tomorrow in archaeology, we involved the staff members beginning with the employers in archaeology and ending with the teachers involved in the higher education of the students, in order to create and develop a new curriculum that is more reliable with the needs of the labour market. This intellectual output represents a preamble of the Manual for the methods of teaching and learning on the archaeological sites. The curriculum has established the goals and the targets of the practice stages on the archaeological sites, the expected results, performance indicators, as well as the way in which the student's work will be evaluated. This curriculum aims to present in detail the knowledge and skills which a student can develop within a practice program in the archaeological field school. This pedagogical materials entitled Curriculum – International education offer in Archaeological field-schools/ Curriculum – Ofertă educaţională internaţională în şantierele arheologice – şcoală, available in bilingual format, it was created in such a way to fit perfectly into the educational programs in each universities with archaeological profile from Europe. It is consist in an introduction, were the programs was described, the general aims of this; the programme and module structure (12 modules: Non-invasive archaeology, Field-walking archaeology, Archaeological situations, Excavation Techniques, Recording the archaeological excavation, Collecting archaeological material, Primary conservation, Field drawing, Drawing archaeological finds Photography at archaeological excavation, Topographic survey and GIS, Epigraphic Databases); Programme Outcomes Linked to Teaching, Learning and the Assessment Methods; Programme Regulations; School Support for Students and Students’ Learning; Admission Criteria; Regulation of Assessment and Academic Standards and the Quality and Standards; and the module description. To be easier to fallow and implement each module has been inserted following the same pattern: module title; module code; duration; short description; the most important aims of the modules; with a special emphasis on the intended learning outcomes, being evaluate the module module specific skills and knowledge, then the discipline specific skills and knowledge, and the personal and key transferable/ employment skills and knowledge; a summary and structure of the syllabus plan; learning activities and teaching method; formative assessment; and finally in was point out the indicative learning resources. This curriculum developed after the two-year of international programme, by the professors and researchers of the five partner institutes, in such way to offer students a solid grounding in a range of fieldwork methods applied in Roman Archaeology and tested within the specific context of the site at Sarmizegetusa, Romania.

The town of Valga, situated on the border of Estonia and Latvia, has until recently been archaeologically very little investigated. In 2008, the town central square and the streets surrounding the St. John's church were reconstructed. New water, rainwater, sewage and heating pipelines were set up in the reconstructed area and the author of present article was carrying out archaeological supervision during the digging of trenches for the pipes (Tvauri 2009). Supervision work was commissioned by the City Council of Valga and provided by OÜ Arheograator.