Abstract
Abstract. This research has analysed the distribution of ceramic finds from classical and archaic ages in the territory of the ancient Greek colony Himera, a town situated near Termini Imerese, in the province of Palermo (Sicily, Italy), which has been the site of systematic excavations carried out by the University of Palermo since the Sixties. The study of about 1500 ceramic fragments, dated back to the 6th-5th century B.C., has allowed to develop an approach to the understanding of the role played by ceramics in the relations between different societies and cultures. Besides the most common analysis factors for the ceramic manufactures, such as their production and distribution, a major factor is the way the manufactures were used. From this wider perspective, a new methodology has been developed about information potential of functional analysis. The interpretation of data about the manufacture distribution was made by means of GIS methodologies, querying the alphanumerical classification database and relating the manufacture typological data to the geo-cartographic ones by means of applying intersite-level spatial analysis. Thus, each archaeological piece of information about the finds can be analysed in relation to the territory geo-morphological features and the obtained data can be processed with specific software environments, in order to suggest reconstruction models for the anthropic landscape, based on the relation between coeval sites and distance from specific environment features — for example, distance from water sources, raw materials, road condition etc. The computer application used for data handling, presentation and analysis, becomes this way a tool of research aimed at the comprehension of settlement dynamics in the historical scenery. This study is the occasion to propose such an analysis system of cultural heritage as a new tool to promote it and to increase its value, applying a territorial context related methodology founded on scientific evidence.
Highlights
We are here presenting the methodology and results of a pottery study in the territory of the Calcidese colony of Himera
Together with the analysis factors which are commonly used in pottery study – production, distribution and International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XXXVIII-5/W16, 2011 ISPRS Trento 2011 Workshop, 2-4 March 2011, Trento, Italy circulation (Bresson 2007) – the research regarded their consumption, that is the way an object is used and the variety of its possible uses [Bats 1988; Ruby 1993], strictly connected to the role that it plays in society
In a context of cultural contact among different cultures, objects may have played the role of culture spreading agents: from this idea of manufacture as a “cultural mediator”, our approach levels have proved to be efficient and have supplied interesting thematic maps for the reconstruction of the ancient landscape. Those approach levels are functional to the highlighting of exchange and contact dynamics among ancient populations
Summary
We are here presenting the methodology and results of a pottery study in the territory of the Calcidese colony of Himera. The research objective was to analyse the distribution of superficial findings, both to locate the territorial circulation of these artefacts during the archaic and classical ages, and to comprehend the processes of cultural exchange and relationships between settlers and natives who populated the hinterland, by means of information technology. It is important to emphasize the methodological aspects, and not just the results, reckoning with the innovative information technologies in the research planning and the future development of ancient pottery studies. The territory covered by the analysed findings extends between the valleys of the rivers Imera, Torto and St. Leonardo (Figure 1). The site has been object of excavations since the Sixties, and extends mainly on a territory not inhabited in modern ages
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