Val di Pesa and Val Orme as a changing rural landscape: an integrated approach

Northern inland Etruria is one of the least studied areas in Italy, especially as far as the Roman period is concerned. The proposed project (Vienna Orme and Pesa valley Project) addresses this situation and covers a microregion defined by the two river valleys of Orme and Pesa, between the surroundings of Empoli in the Arno plain and the more mountainous inland territory to the south. VOPP is designed as landscape archaeological project with a consistent methodological framework combined with model- ling and clear-cut objectives and research questions. The general aim of the project is to investigate changes and continuities of land-use and human activi- ties in the landscape as a dynamic space, which develops interactively with the people inhabiting it. Several objectives will be addressed: (1) The changing (or unchanged) nature of rural land use and the processes behind these changes (2) Issues of site definition and site classification, especially villas, and the constitution of villa land- scapes (3) The relationship between the Roman town of Empoli and the valleys of Pesa and Orme (4) Differing patterns of use of material culture The project is chronologically inclusive, examining sites ranging from the Etruscan period to the early Middle Ages, with special focus on late republican and early and late imperial times (150 BC 400 AD). The project explores processes of transformation during periods of expansion, intensification, consolidation and eventual deconstruction of the Roman rural landscape. Key aims for discussing the character of the landscape are to identify the infiltration/withdrawal of a variety of habits into daily life and the change of patterns relating to the production, distribution and consumption of material culture. The approach is centred on interdisciplinarity. In order to study land-use and the landscape develop- ments a multi-stage, multi-scalar fieldwork scheme (with built-in feedback loops) will be applied. VOPP will conduct systematic data collection from multiple sources. It bridges the gap between exca- vation, pottery assemblage analysis, geophysical prospection and systematic on-site surveys with its emphasis on single sites and intensive off-site surveys, extensive-mode survey reconnaissance of the region and geoarchaeological investigations with its much broader regional approach. Further pottery studies and geoarchaeological, archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological analyses will provide im- portant insights into the human-landscape interactions and a reasonable and well founded idea of the demand and consumption at different sites, defining and being defined by their status and function in local networks. Finally, model building and discussion of the methods applied in all stages combined with a vast dissemination strategy will VOPP make an important contributions to landscape archaeol- ogy, survey methodology and material culture analyses beyond the narrower limits of regional re- search in Northern Etruria.

The Vienna Orme and Pesa Valley Project (VOPP) focused on the investigation of land-use and human activities in a well-defined micro-region in Inland Northern Etruria by applying a multi-stage and multi-scalar fieldwork scheme. More specifically, VOPP researched the following topics: (1) The changing or unchanged nature of rural land use (2) The relationship between the Roman town of Empoli and the valleys of Pesa and Orme (3) Differing patterns of use of material culture (4) Issues of site definition and site classification, especially villas Anchoring point of the project was the site of Molino San Vincenzo which was investigated by a broad array of different methodological approaches like repeated on site-surveys, shovel tests, geophysical prospection, phosphate analysis, palynological and zooarchaeological research as well as excavation and analyses of the material culture found. That interdisciplinary approach allowed entirely new insights in the living and working environment of a farmstead in Roman Tuscany from Middle Republican till Late Antique times (3 cent. BCE 5 cent CE). Concerning methodology VOPP clearly revealed the difficulties to exactly categorize sites and to ascribe them to hierarchically ordered types like villa, villa rustica and farmstead. Archaeobotanical studies in Molino San Vincenzo revealed that cereal cultivation took place in the surrounding of the site but also that the environment was characterized by pasturelands. That outcome hints at the existence of a highly developed ley farming system already in Roman times. In consequence we have to rethink our familiar conceptions on Roman agriculture. That new picture of Roman land-use is corroborated by the results of zooarchaeological analyses and off-side surveys. Material culture analysis proved that Molino San Vincenzo stood in strict contrast to the city of Empoli: Although the rural site was part of the empire-wide trade and intensive export activities of agricultural produce are attested, import rates of pottery were low and restricted to regionally produced vessels. Neighboring rural sites, however, show very different assemblages. Thus it is not sufficient to establish a simplistic dichotomy between urban and rural but a finer grained differentiation is necessary. Evidently centuriatio played a decisive role as a comparison between the sites Molino San Vincenzo and Cotone revealed. The combination of on-site surveys, analyses of material culture and geophysics showed that the Val di Pesa and Val Orme should not be conceptualized as villa landscape with these high status sites as the main determining factor. Even a reduction of land-use to agricultural production only is too narrow-sighted: The study area of VOPP was dotted by sites with various functions from pottery kilns, small repositories for agricultural produce to road stations and large farmsteads. So the multi-metho-dological approach of VOPP provided fundamental insights in the functional variability of the sites and will help to discuss problems of site classification on a methodologically more secure basis. Therefore the outcome of VOPP is relevant not only for Northern Tuscany in Roman times but for landscape archaeological research at all.