Seeds/fruits, pollen and parasite remains as evidence of site function: piazza Garibaldi – Parma (N Italy) in Roman and Mediaeval times

Abstract

Archaeobotanical analyses were carried out on layers from the site of Piazza Garibaldi in Parma, a town located in the plain of Emilia Romagna, in northern Italy. The layers dated to the 3rd–2nd centuries BC, around the time of the foundation of the Roman town, and to the 10th–11th centuries AD. According to archaeological data, the site was a sacred area in Roman times, while it was a market square in Mediaeval times. Data from pollen and seeds/fruits were useful for both palaeoenvironmental and palaeoethnobotanical reconstructions, and together with NPPs including parasite remains contributed to add details on the function of the site in the different chronological phases. Since Roman times, woods have grown far from the site, and human activities highly influenced the landscape. Cereals, legumes and hemp were cultivated together with figs, grapevines, and a number of medicinal, vegetables and spice plants. Altogether, data confirmed the presence of votive offerings, and particularly the association of opium poppy and cereals suggested that they were mainly offered to Ceres, the goddess of crops and soil fertility. In the Middle Ages, cereal fields, together with legumes, grapevines and fruit trees continued to be grown in the area, but olive trees and Prunoideae revealed a different arboricultural economy. The analyses of plant and parasite remains in four pits and one latrine suggested that their infillings consisted of waste, human and animal excrements, deteriorated vegetable food and marcs. Human parasite eggs of Ascaris and Trichuris were found in the latrine, while parasites of animals were found also in the pits. The interpretation of archaeobotanical data was so tightly linked to the archaeological context that similar spectra must be differently interpreted in the two chronological phases.