Sponsored by: Archaeological Institute of America
After being occupied for a century, the indigenous Italic settlement at Vagnari in Apulia, like other settlements in the region, was deserted in the 3rd century B.C.E. as a result of the Roman conquest of southern Italy. A century later, a new Roman rural settlement in private hands was established on the Vagnari plateau. Ownership changed again here in the early 1st century C.E. when the Roman emperor established his own agricultural estate with a diverse economic basis, ranging from cereal crop cultivation and viticulture to industrial production. Imperial properties in Italy have been studied primarily through historical texts and epigraphic evidence. On the basis of excavations by the University of Sheffield, the lecture considers how archaeology at Vagnari offers a fresh perspective on profound changes in social and political circumstances, population mobility, and economic regimes in the context of Roman imperial ownership.
Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:
M. Carroll, Vagnari. Is this the winery of Rome’s greatest landowner?, Current World Archaeology 76: 2016, 30-33
M. Carroll, Preliminary Report on the University of Sheffield Excavations in the Vicus of the Roman Imperial Estate at Vagnari, Puglia, 2012-2018, FastiOnline FOLD&R 2019-431 www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2019-431.pdf
T.L. Prowse and M. Carroll (2018), Research at the Roman Imperial Estate at Vagnari, Puglia (Comune di Gravina in Puglia, Provincia di Bari, Regione Puglia), Papers of the British School at Rome 86: 333-337
Website:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/archaeology/research/vagnari
Norton Lecture
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