Familiarity, Repetition, and Quotidian Movement in Roman Tuscany
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v28i2.29531Keywords:
connectivity, corridors of movement, focal points, GIS, ground-truthing, meshwork, mobilityAbstract
This study investigates the connectivity between a number of places in an ancient Tuscan landscape by developing and testing hypotheses about mobility around and across the region. Interpretatively, it makes use of the concepts of familiarity and repetition in evaluating the quotidian experience of a landscape. Methodologically, it employs a multi-stranded approach, combining traditional topographical and archaeological assessments with GIS and ground-truthing exercises in a recursive dialog. It posits a ‘meshwork of connectivity’, which served to facilitate short- and long-distance travel within and across the region. It explores interactions between natural barriers and routeways, on the one hand, and human interventions and decision-making, on the other, and proposes the existence of both ‘corridors of movement’ and ‘focal points’ in the landscape. Finally, it suggests that seasonal variation in both environmental factors and economic imperatives likely impacted both the ease and the extent of regional travel.References
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Anschuetz, K.F., R.H. Wilshusen and C.L. Scheick 2001 An archaeology of landscapes: perspectives and directions. Journal of Archaeological Research 9: 157-211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1016621326415
Ashmore, W. 2004 Social archaeologies of landscape. In L. Meskell and R. Preucel (eds.), A Companion to Social Archaeology, 255-71. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
Ashmore, W., and A.B. Knapp (eds.) 1999 Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
Bell, T., and G. Lock 2000 Topographic and cultural influences on walking the ridgeway in later prehistoric times. In G. Lock (ed.), Beyond the Map: Archaeology and Spatial Technologies, 85-100. Amsterdam: IOS Press.
Bernstein, H., and T.J. Byres 2001 From peasant studies to agrarian change. Journal of Agrarian Change 1: 1-56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1471-0366.00002
Caselli, G., and S. Guerrini 1977 Viaggio nella cultura contadina. La Graticola 5.1. Firenze: Tipografia Giuntina.
Citter, C. 2007 Il sistema viario tirrenico romano: strategia, cronologia, obiettivi. In C. Citter and A. Arnoldus-Huyzendveld (eds.), Archeologia urbana a Grosseto I. La città nel contesto geografico della bassa valle dell’Ombrone, 156-98. Firenze: All’insegna del giglio.
Citter, C., and A. Arnoldus-Huyzendveld 2011 Uso e sfruttamento delle risorse nella pianura grossetana nel medioevo verso una storia del parcellario e del paesaggio agrario. Roma: Artemide.
Close, A.E. 2000 Reconstructing movement in prehistory. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 7: 49-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1009560628428
Constable, O.R. 2003 Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dall’Aglio, P.I., and G. Rosada (eds.) 2010 Sistemi centuriali e opere di assetto agrario tra eta? romana e primo medioevo: aspetti metodologici, ricostruttivi e interpretativi: Atti del convegno, Borgoricco (Padova–Lugo (Ravenna) 10–12 settembre 2009. Pisa and Roma: Fabrizio Serra.
de Certeau, M. 2002 The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. S. Rendall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. First published in 1984.
de Ligt, L. 1993 Fairs and Markets in the Roman Empire: Economic and Social Aspects of Periodic Trade in a Pre-Industrial Society. Amsterdam: Gieben.
Erickson, C.L. 2009 Agency, causeways, canals, and the landscapes of everyday life in the Bolivian Amazon. In J.E. Snead, C.L. Erickson and J.A. Darling (eds.), Landscapes of Movement: Trails, Paths, and Roads in Anthropological Perspective, 204-31. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Fairén Jiménez, S. 2004 ¿Se hace camino al andar? Influencia de las variables medioambientales y culturales en el cálculo de caminos óptimos mediante SIG. Trabajos de Prehistoria 61: 25-40.
Fitzjohn, M. 2007 Viewing places: GIS applications for examining the perception of space in the mountains of Sicily. World Archaeology 39: 36-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240601136439
Forbes, H.A. 2007 Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape: An Archaeological Ethnography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720284
Galt, A.H. 1991 Far from the Church Bells: Settlement and Society in an Apulian Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511470547
Gates-Foster, J. 2012 The well-remembered path: roadways and cultural memory in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 202-21. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch10
Ghisleni, M. 2010 Carta archeologica della provincia di Grosseto: comune di Cinigiano. Dinamiche insediative e di potere fra V e XI secolo nella bassa val d’Orcia e nella media valle dell’Ombrone. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Università di Siena.
Ghisleni, M., E. Vaccaro and K. Bowes 2011 Excavating the Roman peasant I: excavations at Pievina (GR). Papers of the British School at Rome 79: 95-145. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0068246211000067
Gibson, E. 2007 The archaeology of movement in a Mediterranean landscape. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 20: 61-87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v20i1.61
Given, M. 2013 Commotion, collaboration, conviviality: Mediterranean survey and the interpretation of landscape. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 26: 3-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v26i1.3
Given, M., and A.B. Knapp 2003 The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Archaeological Survey. Monumenta Archaeologica 21. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Gonzales, A. 1998 Has epistulas Hermes tulit… Lettres et porteurs de lettres dans la correspondance de Pline le Jeune. Dialogues d’Histoire Ancien 24: 73-87. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/dha.1998.2392
Grey, C. 2004 Letters of recommendation and the circulation of rural laborers in the late Roman West. In L. Ellis and F.L. Kidner (eds.), Travel, Communication, and Geography in Late Antiquity, 25-40. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
----- 2011 Constructing Communities in the Late Roman Countryside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hitchner, R.B. 2012 Roads, integration, connectivity, and economic performance in the Roman Empire. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 222-34. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch11
Horden, P., and N. Purcell 2000 The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Ingold, T. 1993 The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeology 25: 152-74.
----- 2011a Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge, and Description. New York and London: Routledge.
----- 2011b The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill. Revised edn. New York and London: Routledge.
Llobera, M. 1996 Exploring the topography of mind: GIS, social space and archaeology. Antiquity 70: 612-22.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00083745
Llobera, M., P. Fábrega-Álvarez and C. Parcero-Oubiña 2011 Order in movement: a GIS approach to accessibility. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 843-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.11.006
Nucciotti, M. 2010 Paesaggi dell’Impero nella Toscana del X secolo. Il palatium di Arcidosso: senso storico di un tipo edilizio europeo. Archeologia Medievale 37: 513-27.
Pettegrew, D. 2001 Chasing the classical farmstead: assessing the formation and signature of rural settlement in Greek landscape archaeology. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 14: 189-209.
Settis, S., and E. Gabba 1989 Misurare la terra: centuriazione e coloni nel mondo romano. Modena: Edizioni Panini.
Shaw, J.M. 2012 Roads to ruins: the role of Sacbeob in ancient Maya society. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 128-46. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch6
Stone, D. 2005 Decision Making in Medieval Agriculture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247769.001.0001
Snead, J.E. 2012 Obliterated itineraries: Pueblo trails, Chaco roads, and archaeological knowledge. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 106-27. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch5
Snead, J.E., C.L. Erickson and J.A. Darling 2009 Making human space: the archaeology of trails, paths, and roads. In J.E. Snead, C.L. Erickson and J.A. Darling (eds.), Landscapes of Movement: Trails, Paths, and Roads in Anthropological Perspective, 1-19. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Talbert, R.J.A. 2012 Roads not featured: a Roman failure to communicate? In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 235-54. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch12
Thomas, J. 2001 Archaeologies of place and landscape. In I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory Today, 165-86. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Tilley, C.Y. 1994 A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments. Oxford: Berg.
van Dommelen, P. 1993 Roman peasants and rural organisation in central Italy: an archaeological perspective. In E. Scott (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology: First Conference Proceedings, 167-86. Aldershot, UK: Avebury.
Anschuetz, K.F., R.H. Wilshusen and C.L. Scheick 2001 An archaeology of landscapes: perspectives and directions. Journal of Archaeological Research 9: 157-211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1016621326415
Ashmore, W. 2004 Social archaeologies of landscape. In L. Meskell and R. Preucel (eds.), A Companion to Social Archaeology, 255-71. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
Ashmore, W., and A.B. Knapp (eds.) 1999 Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
Bell, T., and G. Lock 2000 Topographic and cultural influences on walking the ridgeway in later prehistoric times. In G. Lock (ed.), Beyond the Map: Archaeology and Spatial Technologies, 85-100. Amsterdam: IOS Press.
Bernstein, H., and T.J. Byres 2001 From peasant studies to agrarian change. Journal of Agrarian Change 1: 1-56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1471-0366.00002
Caselli, G., and S. Guerrini 1977 Viaggio nella cultura contadina. La Graticola 5.1. Firenze: Tipografia Giuntina.
Citter, C. 2007 Il sistema viario tirrenico romano: strategia, cronologia, obiettivi. In C. Citter and A. Arnoldus-Huyzendveld (eds.), Archeologia urbana a Grosseto I. La città nel contesto geografico della bassa valle dell’Ombrone, 156-98. Firenze: All’insegna del giglio.
Citter, C., and A. Arnoldus-Huyzendveld 2011 Uso e sfruttamento delle risorse nella pianura grossetana nel medioevo verso una storia del parcellario e del paesaggio agrario. Roma: Artemide.
Close, A.E. 2000 Reconstructing movement in prehistory. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 7: 49-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1009560628428
Constable, O.R. 2003 Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dall’Aglio, P.I., and G. Rosada (eds.) 2010 Sistemi centuriali e opere di assetto agrario tra eta? romana e primo medioevo: aspetti metodologici, ricostruttivi e interpretativi: Atti del convegno, Borgoricco (Padova–Lugo (Ravenna) 10–12 settembre 2009. Pisa and Roma: Fabrizio Serra.
de Certeau, M. 2002 The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. S. Rendall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. First published in 1984.
de Ligt, L. 1993 Fairs and Markets in the Roman Empire: Economic and Social Aspects of Periodic Trade in a Pre-Industrial Society. Amsterdam: Gieben.
Erickson, C.L. 2009 Agency, causeways, canals, and the landscapes of everyday life in the Bolivian Amazon. In J.E. Snead, C.L. Erickson and J.A. Darling (eds.), Landscapes of Movement: Trails, Paths, and Roads in Anthropological Perspective, 204-31. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Fairén Jiménez, S. 2004 ¿Se hace camino al andar? Influencia de las variables medioambientales y culturales en el cálculo de caminos óptimos mediante SIG. Trabajos de Prehistoria 61: 25-40.
Fitzjohn, M. 2007 Viewing places: GIS applications for examining the perception of space in the mountains of Sicily. World Archaeology 39: 36-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240601136439
Forbes, H.A. 2007 Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape: An Archaeological Ethnography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720284
Galt, A.H. 1991 Far from the Church Bells: Settlement and Society in an Apulian Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511470547
Gates-Foster, J. 2012 The well-remembered path: roadways and cultural memory in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 202-21. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch10
Ghisleni, M. 2010 Carta archeologica della provincia di Grosseto: comune di Cinigiano. Dinamiche insediative e di potere fra V e XI secolo nella bassa val d’Orcia e nella media valle dell’Ombrone. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Università di Siena.
Ghisleni, M., E. Vaccaro and K. Bowes 2011 Excavating the Roman peasant I: excavations at Pievina (GR). Papers of the British School at Rome 79: 95-145. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0068246211000067
Gibson, E. 2007 The archaeology of movement in a Mediterranean landscape. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 20: 61-87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v20i1.61
Given, M. 2013 Commotion, collaboration, conviviality: Mediterranean survey and the interpretation of landscape. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 26: 3-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v26i1.3
Given, M., and A.B. Knapp 2003 The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Archaeological Survey. Monumenta Archaeologica 21. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Gonzales, A. 1998 Has epistulas Hermes tulit… Lettres et porteurs de lettres dans la correspondance de Pline le Jeune. Dialogues d’Histoire Ancien 24: 73-87. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/dha.1998.2392
Grey, C. 2004 Letters of recommendation and the circulation of rural laborers in the late Roman West. In L. Ellis and F.L. Kidner (eds.), Travel, Communication, and Geography in Late Antiquity, 25-40. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
----- 2011 Constructing Communities in the Late Roman Countryside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hitchner, R.B. 2012 Roads, integration, connectivity, and economic performance in the Roman Empire. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 222-34. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch11
Horden, P., and N. Purcell 2000 The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Ingold, T. 1993 The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeology 25: 152-74.
----- 2011a Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge, and Description. New York and London: Routledge.
----- 2011b The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill. Revised edn. New York and London: Routledge.
Llobera, M. 1996 Exploring the topography of mind: GIS, social space and archaeology. Antiquity 70: 612-22.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00083745
Llobera, M., P. Fábrega-Álvarez and C. Parcero-Oubiña 2011 Order in movement: a GIS approach to accessibility. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 843-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.11.006
Nucciotti, M. 2010 Paesaggi dell’Impero nella Toscana del X secolo. Il palatium di Arcidosso: senso storico di un tipo edilizio europeo. Archeologia Medievale 37: 513-27.
Pettegrew, D. 2001 Chasing the classical farmstead: assessing the formation and signature of rural settlement in Greek landscape archaeology. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 14: 189-209.
Settis, S., and E. Gabba 1989 Misurare la terra: centuriazione e coloni nel mondo romano. Modena: Edizioni Panini.
Shaw, J.M. 2012 Roads to ruins: the role of Sacbeob in ancient Maya society. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 128-46. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch6
Stone, D. 2005 Decision Making in Medieval Agriculture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247769.001.0001
Snead, J.E. 2012 Obliterated itineraries: Pueblo trails, Chaco roads, and archaeological knowledge. In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 106-27. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch5
Snead, J.E., C.L. Erickson and J.A. Darling 2009 Making human space: the archaeology of trails, paths, and roads. In J.E. Snead, C.L. Erickson and J.A. Darling (eds.), Landscapes of Movement: Trails, Paths, and Roads in Anthropological Perspective, 1-19. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Talbert, R.J.A. 2012 Roads not featured: a Roman failure to communicate? In S.E. Alcock, J. Bodel and J.A. Talbert (eds.), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World, 235-54. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118244326.ch12
Thomas, J. 2001 Archaeologies of place and landscape. In I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory Today, 165-86. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Tilley, C.Y. 1994 A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments. Oxford: Berg.
van Dommelen, P. 1993 Roman peasants and rural organisation in central Italy: an archaeological perspective. In E. Scott (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology: First Conference Proceedings, 167-86. Aldershot, UK: Avebury.
Published
2016-01-21
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Grey, C., Mathieu, J. R., Arnoldus-Huyzendveld, A., Patacchini, A., & Ghisleni, M. (2016). Familiarity, Repetition, and Quotidian Movement in Roman Tuscany. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 28(2), 195-219. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v28i2.29531
