Archaeometric characterization of common wares from Ancient Appia Landscapes Survey (Benevento - Italy): new elements to reconstruct a Late Roman micro-regional ceramic production.

The Ancient Appia Landscapes project (AAL) has been operating since 2011 in partnership with the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage of Salerno, Avellino, Benevento and Caserta. The main idea of the research was the topographic reconstruction of the Via Appia Antica along the stretch between Beneventum and the so-called Appian Bridge on the Calore River, the final goal being the reconstitution of the ancient landscape in this area strongly characterised by Via Appia, in a holist approach to environmental events, population dynamics, settlement patterns and economic activities. The areas concerned with the hypothetical route have been detected using intensive survey techniques and, in some cases, also thematic surveys in sites of specific interest. There is no doubt that one of the most important and complex parts of the research survey is the quantification and classification of ceramic finds. In this study of all the ceramic assemblages of the AAL Surveys and the completion of archaeometric analyses will provide more information towards understanding the production, distribution and consumption patterns of late antique ceramics in the south-east area of Benevento. For now, the pottery analysis of UT 0466 clearly shows that local productions adopted the morphological repertoire that circulated in Naples and Campania in the 5th-6th century, using similar manufacturing techniques, intentionally associated with particular forms of a different cultural tradition. Twenty-four samples from thousands of fragments were selected for archeometric analyses. The procedures applied were: macroscopic analyses, to describe the ceramic paste following the scheme proposed by Williams (1990); optical microscopy observations of thin sections using a Nikon Eclipse 6400 POL microscope with polarised light (20x, 40x, 100x, 200x magnification), to define the main petrographic groups and describe mineralogical and textural features of the pastes according to the terminology suggested by Maggetti (1991); and X-ray powder diffraction analyses, to identify the micro- and crypto-mineralogical phases and determine the firing temperature of the samples