Tracing the Final Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition. Groningen Institute of Archaeology settlement excavations in the Sibaritide, 2018-2019

Abstract

We report here on the first two seasons of excavations by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology (the Netherlands) at two settlement sites in the foothill zone of the Sibaritide coastal plain (northern Calabria, Italy). The work is throwing new light on finds assemblages unique to the transitional period of the Final Bronze Age–Early Iron Age, a poorly understood period in southern Italy, and is helping to resolve methodological questions about the interpretation of non-invasive archaeological and geophysical survey data. The finds so far excavated, supported by radiocarbon dates, form one of the first ‘pure’ FBA–EIA transitional assemblages, and thus contribute to fill a significant typochronological hiatus with wider implications for protohistoric archaeology in the region. It is also becoming clear what long-term effects mechanized ploughing has on slope processes and soil profiles typical for the region, knowledge that will help us understand the results of the wider field surveys and geophysical investigations conducted since 2000 in the Raganello River basin.