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The Prehistoric Settlement at La Starza, Ariano Irpino

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

D. H. Trump
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Extract

A short note published in 1925 in the Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana (vol. xlv, p. 153) briefly recorded the discovery of prehistoric material during quarrying for gypsum near Ariano five years previously. A footnote to an article by Rellini three years later was a little more explicit. The finds, from collapsed caves at the foot of a hill, were largely of the Apennine Culture of the Bronze Age with some painted Neolithic ware. The same statement is repeated almost word for word in Rellini's La Più Antica Ceramica Dipinta in Italia, p. 75. Then in 1950, in an article on the prehistoric collections in the Museo Nazionale di Napoli, Buchner wrote a short paragraph which attracted far less attention than it deserved. It recorded that in material sent in from the quarry between 1920 and 1938 impressed and scratched neolithic pottery was also present.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 25 , November 1957 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1957

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References

1 Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana (hereafter B.P.I), xlviii, 1928, p. 38Google Scholar.

2 Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche, v, 1950, p. 98Google Scholar.

3 Quarrymen reported to me the discovery and immediate destruction some years ago of a Roman inscribed marble slab; there is a small site of the Roman period on the ridge near the modern farm 200 m. to the north; a very large one lies above the Masseria S. Eleuterio 3 km. to the north, whence came a small altar inscribed VIBIDIA SIXLIBERT - FORTVNATA - VENERI POSVILDDD, since removed to Naples Museum. There was some vague talk of ‘giganti’ on the site, to whom all the prehistoric artefacts are locally attributed, and ‘gypsies’ were said to have camped periodically on the southern spur of the hill— perhaps in connection with cattle movement along the tratturo which passes immediately beneath. There is now a small farm below it to the south, from which must have come the very few recent sherds picked up at that end of the site.

4 The altitude of this is almost exactly 400 m.

5 Monumenti Antichi (hereafter Mon. Ant.), xx, 1910, col. 285, fig. 33Google Scholar.

6 Mayer, Molfetta und Matera, Taf. VIII, Abb. 4 and 5, which are very close to ours in decoration also.

7 This is at variance with Stevenson's conclusion in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 1947, p. 86.

8 They are too common on Apulian sites for individual parallels to be necessary. For the wider implications see Bradford's forthcoming book and Bernabo Brea, Gli Scavi nella Caverna delle Anne Candide, p. 259. For other illustrations: Cannae, Stevenson, op. cit., pl. I; Molfetta and Terlizzi, references quoted above; the Tavoliere, Bradford; the Tremiti Islands, B.P.I., xxxiii, 1907, tav. IGoogle Scholar.

9 Mayer, Taf. V, 3.

10 Not. Scav., vii, 1910, p. 33Google Scholar, figs. 15–22.

11 Not yet published.

12 Bernabo Brea, op. cit.

13 B.P.I. n.s., x, 1956, p. 19 and fig. 6Google Scholar.

14 Stevenson, op. cit., pl. III, figs. 2 and 4.

15 Rellini, La Più Antica Ceramica Dipinta in Italia, 1934, p. 73, E; Stevenson, op. cit., p. 91.

16 In support of which one sherd from Ariano now in Naples has painted ‘a fasce strette’ and an impressed rocker pattern.

17 Stevenson, op. cit., pl. II and Mayer, op. cit., Taf. XXI and XXII.

18 Naples Museum has a ‘bottiglia’ neck so decorated amongst the sporadic material previously found at La Starza.

19 This ware is virtually absent from the Naples collection.

20 Cf. Ripoli, in Rellini, op. cit., p. 31, fig. 14a.

21 E.g., B.P.I., xxxi, 1905Google Scholar, Tav. I, fig. 4 from Toppo S. Filippo.

22 Rellini, op. cit., p. 31, fig. 14b.

23 B.P.I., xxxi, 1905, Tav. VIII, fig. 1Google Scholar; IX, fig. 2; X, fig. 2.

24 Sporadic in the north quarry.

25 It is identical in ware and decoration and compatible in shape, although this sherd includes neither rim nor shoulder, with two examples in Naples Museum. See P. C. Sestieri, Paestum Guide (in the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione series, “Itinerari dei Musei e Monumenti d'Italia no. 84), fig. 58. lower left.

26 B.P.I. n.s., x, 1956, p. 39Google Scholar, fig. 20, 1. Similar decoration occurs on a small jar of much coarser ware from the Grotta Nicolucci, Sorrento, now in the Istituto di Antropologia, Naples University. It is illustrated, though poorly, in Mon. Ant., xxix, 1923, col. 396, fig. 36bGoogle Scholar.

27 La Puglia Preistorica, 1936, p. 115, fig. 28.

28 Mon. Ant., xix, 1908, Tav. IX, fig. 60B and DGoogle Scholar.

29 B.P.I., xx, 1894, p. 29Google Scholar.

30 R.S.P., v, 1950, p. 101Google Scholar. The decoration of the Ariano sherd occurs at the type site but not at Mirabello.

31 I hope later to publish the results of a detailed study, not yet complete, of the regional variations of the Apennine Cultures.

32 Mon. Ant., xix, 1908, Tav. VI, figs. 31 and 32Google Scholar.

33 B.P.I., lii, 1932, p. 40Google Scholar, Tav. III, fig. 6.

34 Papers of the British School at Rome, xxi, 1953, p. 11Google Scholar, fig. 5, 31; B.P.I., l–li, 1930, p. 132, Tav. IX, figs. 2 and 3Google Scholar.

35 Including Latronico in Lucania, , Mon. Ant., xxiv, 1916, col. 501, fig. 36Google Scholar.

36 This term was used by Peet and is far more convenient than the Italian ‘ansa a nastro eretto.’

37 La Starza—4 examples in Naples, 3 collected by us; Nevigata—1 in Taranto Museum, 1 in Rome University collection; Castiglione—1 in Ischia Museum, B.P.I. n.s., i, 1936, p. 73, fig. 1Google Scholar.

38 In Naples and our sherd, Taranto, and Ischia respectively.

39 For illustrations see Gervasio, I Dolmen e la Civiltà del Bronzo nelle Puglie, figs. 67, 68, 75 (1, 4, 5, 6, 7) and 76 (2 and 5).

40 The last and one of the first are in Rome University, all the others in Taranto.

41 From cave 2.

42 1 in the Biblioteca Communale, Imola, 3 in the Museo Civico, Bologna.

43 Pigorini, Museo, Rome, B.P.I., xxxiii, 1907, Tav. V, fig. 5Google Scholar; Naples University; Museo Nazionale, Naples.

44 Illustrated, not very clearly, in B.P.I., n.s., x, 1956, p. 71, fig. 45Google Scholarn.

45 Note in this respect k. in the same figure as the last.

46 Mon. Ant., ix, 1899, col. 573, fig. 24Google Scholar, from Pertosa.

47 Papers of the British School at Rome, xxi, 1953, p. 6, fig. 3.18Google Scholar shows a sherd of one, inverted, from Manaccora.

48 One from Pian Sultano in the Pigorini, and a doubtful one from Trebbo Sei Vie in Bologna.

49 Prof. Puglisi has kindly allowed me to use this information in advance of his own publication.

50 Scoglio del Tonno, 1 at Taranto; Nevigata, 1 in the Pigorini; Punta Manaccora, 1 in the author's possession.

51 A doubtful one from Nevigata in the Pigorini.

52 It cannot have been used with the example preserved as the internal radius of the ledge sherd is too large to have been spanned by this funnel.

53 Cf. the well-known bowls used as lids on the early urnfield cineraries at Pianello, Timmari, Milazzo, etc.

54 The Hart chariot-burial of the South German Urnenfelder in the Prähistorische Staatssammlung, Munich, included these and the bronze bowls which show the metallic origin of the trait.

55 Prof. Puglisi in conversation suggested that the Apennine sherds mentioned in the last paragraph could possibly be late enough to be associated with this ware.

56 According to Dr Buchner, all 7 pieces of obsidian from the site were from Lipari sources.

57 Parts of human mandibles were picked up also in cave 2 and G, the latter of a child with milk molars. Quarrymen gave me the skull, the only part preserved, of a skeleton found complete some four years ago. It is an adult male, length (increased by a very prominent occiput) 191·5 mm., breadth 147·5, index 77·0.