The Vultur Project: An archaeological investigation of the Vulture zone of the Lucanian Frontier as a sphere of pre-Roman cultural interaction and Late Roman stability (excavation and survey)

The following describes the basic principles of the five-year program of archaeological research in the Vulture area of northern Basilicata. The Primary funding for the project is from the Comune of Rionero in Vulture and the Comunità Montana del Vulture of Basilicata. The project will involve various Universities (including University of Alberta, Canada and University of Sydney, Australia). The project will be based upon a focused regional survey, which has been designed to augment an existing campaign of excavation. The project seeks to illuminate diachronic land-use patterns and shifting negotiations of settlement distribution in a zone which acted as a frontier between multiple cultural groups, under a uniquely wide range of sociopolitical conditions through an unusually long period.

The project centres on the region of northern Basilicata, on the southern slopes and adjoining valley of the Vulture volcano, in the comuni (municipalities) of Rionero in Vulture and Atella. The project will be primarily based upon survey work, but excavation will also be conducted at a Roman villa and Basilica between Rionero and Atella, and a Lucanian necropolis at Rionero. Over five years it is estimated that two months of each year dedicated to survey and excavations conducted with the Sopratendenza per archeologia di Basilicata.

 Aims

The research aims of the project are as follows:

1. Intensive/extensive survey of the Rionero-Atella area in order to both identify sites of particular importance and to supply data for an analysis of settlement nucleation and land-use from the Early Iron Age to the Late Roman period.

2. Excavation of the Roman villa/baths/Basilica complex at Torre degli Embrici and preliminary excavation of the Lucanian necropolis at Rionero, with the support of the comune of Rionero. Selective excavation of tombs to the south of Rionero and identified sites from survey to determine chronology and spatial extent of said sites.

3. Study of results from a perspective of frontier analysis in terms of: Definition, linearity and movement of frontiers over time (movement, fluidity); Territoriality (what was being divided); Permeability (crossing the frontier, hot and cold frontier?); Cultural borders (Daunian/Lucanian, Roman divisions, religious divisions in Late Antiquity).

4. Publication of results.

The area concerned is known as “The Vulture”, in the northern part of the Italian Regione of Basilicata. A virtual  terra incognita in terms of archaeology, the proximity of the Vulture to the Daunian region of northernmost Basilicata, to the Ofanto valley (a conduit for trade across the Italian peninsula from Puglia to Campania) and to the Lucanian heartland in the south made it the "gateway to the mountains", from the time of the arrival of Neolithic agricultural technologies   in   the   7^th millennium BC, down to the protohistoric and historical periods. The material remains of extensive settlement in the Daunian region and the Ofanto valley, as well as the remains of trade and other contacts, have been shown to have been astonishingly precocious and intense.

Although little archaeological information has been published about the Rionero/Atella zone, there is good reason to suspect that it possessed an important settlement site during the Iron Age, and acted as a fluid frontier zone for most of the 1^st millennium BC and 1^st millennium AD. This may be made clear from the number of burials excavated illegally in the area in the 19^th century. The contents of those tombs, and their form, suggest Lucanian settlement in the area in the 4^th century BC. Sporadic finds (such as those made by Richard Fletcher at Torre degli Embrici) indicate both Peuketiante and Daunian cultural contact in the centuries prior to Lucanian infiltration into the zone (although it is unclear which group was dominant, if either). After Roman conquest in the 3rd century BC the Vulture underwent a number of changes; certainly from the Republican period onwards (2^nd century BC) baths and the large villa for intensive agricultural production (villa rustica) seem to have been the most common type of structure – such as those at Ruoti, Atella and Torre degli Embrici. Late Roman evidence both at Ruoti and Torre degli Embrici indicate continuity after the fall of the Western Empire and the latter suggests stability into the 7^th century AD.

The identification of aqueducts in the area should also be possible using survey. The area of the Vulture was probably always famous for the spring waters of the area, particularly in the Roman period. M. Gualtieri has published a map showing the centrality of the Vulture in the aqueduct system of northern Basilicata – which is hardly surprising in the light of the popularity even now of spring waters from the Vulture. It is hoped that the aqueducts can be properly identified and mapped, which in turn could lead to the identification of further sites since such aqueducts will invariably indicate as much.

The strategic importance of the Vulture, in military and economic terms, is presumably what lies behind the frequent mentions of the area in ancient and medieval literature (including Horace), mainly in terms of Venosa and Melfi directly to the east and north of the proposed zone of investigation. The zone is very fertile in agricultural terms, and has certainly has been very productive in the past. One may assume that the Vulture possessed a primate centre for the valley stretching between the volcano and Lagopesole in the first millennium BC, since unpublished archaeological traces from the area suggest a pre-Roman settlement of some importance.  

 The Vulture was the gateway from the north to the mountainous region of Basilicata and to the ancient arterial of the Ofanto valley, and thus constituted a route connecting the complex systems of the Ofanto with those of the relatively isolated mountains, a route used by Bronze Age polities, Peuketiantes, Lucanians, Romans and Goths in succession. What is particularly attractive about the Vulture region, other than the wealth of archaeological material in the area which is apparent even from casual observation, is that the conditions of sociocultural formations and negotiation which are unique to the frontier environment are very likely to be here both highly magnified and unusually well-preserved in the archaeological record. 

Home                                                                                         Full Project Details (PDF)