Research Projects in the Department of Archaeology

The above photo shows: A left lateral aspect of a cranium from Catignano (a Middle Neolithic village in Abruzzo), showing two healing trepanations on the left parietal bone and healed fracture on the left frontal and parietal bones of a 40-50 year old female

The Late Bronze Age (LBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA) in southwest Asia saw major socio-political transformations, including the rise and fall of the Hittite, Kassite and Neo-Assyrian empires. Alongside socio-political and economic instability, climatically induced droughts are among the most frequently cited causes for the collapse of these states. However, direct evidence for the impact of droughts on agricultural systems is virtually absent from these periods, rendering hypotheses that see climate change at the heart of the crises hypothetical.

During the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2500-1600 B.C), a range of exchange networks linked Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Bahrain and South Asia, facilitating the long-distance movement of a wide variety of raw materials and finished products. Texts from the Sargonic and Ur III period (2300-2000 BC) provide us with lists of commodities entering Mesopotamia from toponyms referred to as ‘Dilmun’ (Bahrain), ‘Magan’ (south-eastern Arabia and southern Iran), and ‘Meluhha’ (the Indus Civilisation), which include copper, tin, semi-precious stones, as well as organic products.

In Western Europe the main use for artificial monuments out of stone, wood or earthy materials extends from the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age (4th and 3rd millennium BCE).  This unique period of landscape adaptation has a lasting, visible imprint on the present. However, as monuments are by definition visual landmarks, there is currently a lack of research regarding the perceptive clues offered by these structures to the people who built and frequented them.

The project Science @ Tarquinia aims to provide the complementary scientific support for the long-standing study of the ancient Etruscan city of Tarquinia by the University of Milan. This Unesco World Heritage site is well known for its magnificent painted tombs, its city walls, the Temple of Ara Regina and the monumental zone where the University of Milan has worked for over 30 years. The collaborative work (which started in September 2019) includes flotation, micromorphology, AMS dating, isotopic analysis and aDNA.