Petro-Archaeometric Study of Pre-Roman Pottery from the Archaeological Site of Bec Berciassa (Roccavione, Cuneo, North-West Italy): Technological Remarks from Petrographic Study of Tempers

Abstract

The petro-archaeometric study of ceramics from the Rittatore excavations, Bec Berciassa archaeological site, was carried out on pottery sherds attributed to an older phase dating back to the Late Bronze Age. This collection represents a small sampling of pottery and the chronology of most of this material is homogeneously ascribable to a period between the 6th and the beginning of the 4th century BC (Iron Age). In addition to the archaeometric study, a geological survey highlighted the resources of the area potentially useful for the development of prehistoric communities, including resources that could be used for ceramic production. A thin section study under optical microscope distinguished five ceramic mixtures. They are mostly coarse-grained, hiatal, and serial-textured, calibrated with the addition of fillers. The fine matrix is homogeneous in composition, although with compositional variations in Fe2O3. Therefore, it is possible to hypothesise a single source of supply. The different types of filler can be traced back to minerals and rocks found outcropping within the basins of the Gesso and Vermenagna rivers and thus potentially present as pebbles in their beds. Calc-schists, sparitic calcite, magmatic rocks (granites and aplites), and sericite-schists have been used since the Bronze Age; quartz sandstones and quartzites are only present in Iron Age pottery. At a macroscopic level, all these filler agents are light in colour, tending to white, almost as if the colour and homogeneity of the geological material were a criterion of choice dictated more by tradition and know-how rather than by any particular technological choice.