The Copper Age in Apennine Central Italy and the San Martino Site at Torano di Borgorose (Rieti, Italy)

Summary

Excavations at the San Martino site (Torano di Borgorose, Rieti, Italy) have uncovered the remains of a Copper Age settlement, with evidence of a daub structure and possible hearth. The present contribution reports the results of investigations here and situates these results within the broader context of the mountainous interior areas of central Italy, including parts of the Lazio region and especially neighboring Abruzzo. The quantity of data available from Copper Age sites in this geographical area has increased considerably in recent decades, and it seems clear that people were occupying the landscape fully by the third millennium BC. Evidence from excavation and survey includes abundant pottery, lithic assemblages, and bones, sometimes associated with structures. Sites were used for activities connected with pastoralism and are found along lakeshores, on raised terraces and hillslopes, and even at high altitudes. Still lacking are extensive explorations of individual sites, and absolute dating is needed to refine the traditional chronology, based almost exclusively on ceramic evidence. Nonetheless, the amount of information available from places like the San Martino site makes this geographical area ripe for the kind of regional syntheses already long since undertaken for the Copper Age in other parts of Italy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21780