Sites and Pots

The research presented in this volume derives from the combination of two different projects. The first was undertaken on commission by the Department of Archaeology and the History of Art of the University of Siena whilst the second was run directly by the Faculty of Medieval Archaeology of the same university. In the summer of 2003, SPEA Autostrade a company operating in the motorway infrastructure development sector engaged a team of researchers from the University of Siena and the Archaeological cooperative ASTRA to evaluate the archaeological impact of a project to build the so-called braccio tirrenico between Rosignano Marittimo (province of Livorno) and Civitavecchia (province of Viterbo), intended to complete the A12 motorway along Italys Tyrrhenian coast. The team of archaeologists from Siena was given the task of studying the proposed routes between Pescia Romana and Rosignano, whilst those from the ASTRA cooperative undertook a similar study in Lazio. The long stretch between the Tuscany-Lazio border and Rosignano Marittimo was subdivided into different segments, each of which was then assigned to a single team. One of the areas at greatest archaeological risk from the construction of this new motorway was the stretch between Talamone and Grosseto where very little archaeological research had previously been undertaken. Contents: 1) Definition, Methodologies and Objectives of the Archaeological Research in the Alma, Bruna, Ombrone and Osa Valleys (Province of Grosseto); 2) Roman and Late Antique Settlement Patterns in Four River Valleys (Osa, Ombrone, Bruna and Alma); 3) The Mid-Sixth and Seventh Centuries: the End of the Late Antique Landscape. Toward a New Rural Population Model; 4) Pottery Consumption in the City of Roselle in Light of the Sample Contexts on the North Hill; 5) Ceramics and Rural Areas: the Socio-Economic Differentiation of Settlement Contexts Between the Fourth and Early Seventh Centuries; 6) Portus Scabris-Portiglioni: Analysis of Maritime Trade and the Redistribution of Goods to Rural Areas Between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages; 7) Shipwrecks and the Circulation of Overseas Goods in the Mid and Late Imperial Period: the Cala del Barbiere Harbour at Punta Ala in Its Territorial Context; 8) The Countryside in the Early Middle Ages; 9) Production and Exchange Structures Between the Eighth and Ninth Centuries in Light of the Pottery Evidence; 10) Conclusions: Connecting a Micro-Region to the Wider Western Mediterranean context (AD 300-900); Appendix 1. Catalogue of Sites: the Main Archaeological Features Identified During the Survey (Fourth-Eleventh Century); Appendix 2. Catalogue of Fabrics: Macroscopic and Optical Microscope Analyses.