The San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project: New Interdisciplinary Archaeology in Central Italy

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper introduces the San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project, the focus of this symposium. Our ongoing surveys and excavations at the multicomponent site of San Giuliano (Lazio, Italy) have uncovered a dynamic landscape of interlocking settlement and burial that span the advent of Etruscan civilization to the zenith of the High Middle Ages. We have documented over 500 previously unmapped Etruscan tombs, conducted salvage excavations of four previously looted chamber tombs, and discovered four transitional Villanovan-Etruscan trench tombs dating to around AD 700. Excavations on the plateau have revealed a medieval castle complex, including a feasting hall, a defensive tower, and a crypt with dozens of burials associated with a private chapel. An urban center developed atop the San Giuliano plateau in the seventh century BC, and flourished in the sixth and fifth centuries. After Roman conquest in the third century, people chose to leave the site in favor of dispersed lowland habitation. In the Middle Ages—sometime between AD 800 and 1200—the local population reoccupied and refortified the earlier Etruscan acropolis. Our project seeks to understand the nature and motivations of these settlement shifts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33093