The Roman Villa of Villamagna (Urbisaglia, Macerata - Italy): Pilot Archaebotanical Analysis

The Roman villa of Villamagna, in the ager of the colony of Pollentia-Urbs Salvia, covers a long time-span between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD. Later, on its ruins, or the Hill on which it stands, will be built the castle of Villamaina, razed in 1191 and abandoned in 1422. The roman villa is characterised by a pars massaricia and a pars dominica, due to its monumental structure it is likely that the villa belonged to an important gens of the Pollentia-Urbs Salvia roman colony. In 2000, the Soprintendenza Archeologica per le Marche began to excavate the site, and it continue to do so in 2007, 2009 and 2010. Lately, in 2017, the University of Macerata took over the excavation and samples for archaeobotanical analysis were collected from the warehouses and a room of pars dominica of the villa. Seed and fruit remains were analysed in the Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Palaeoecology of the University of Salento. Almost three-thousand carpological remains were examined ,all the major cereals are attested (Hordeum sp., Triticum sp., Avena sp.), butminor cereals are attested only during the Roman phase. The edible legumes are very few. Two different catchment areas, one dry and one humid, have been proposed. Seven taxa of fruit trees have been recognized. The biometric analysis carried out on the seeds of Vitis, the most represented taxa (2248 pips remains), have determine that the specimens are of the wild type, perhaps a cultivated variety of the area