Roman Villa Research Articles

Lombardic Glassworking in Tuscany

The excavations carried out since 2005 at Aiano-Torraccia di Chiusi, near San Gimignano (Siena) in Tuscany, by the team of the Université catholique de Louvain, directed by Prof. Marco Cavalieri, have unearthed the remains of a Roman villa, dated between the 3rd and the end of the 5th century or the beginning of the 6th century A.D. The complex, abandoned in the 6th century, was occupied by Lombardic (Langobard) artisans in the period between the 6th and the 7th century A.D. The artisans installed various kinds of workshops in the rooms of the representative part of the villa. The workshops were connected one to another and were provided with water from a complex system of channels, probably fed by a higher positioned reservoir. They include a ceramic workshop with a kiln and other spaces for different working stages, a large and well-organized iron smithy, three rooms in which Roman glass tesserae and glass fragments were recycled and reworked, and apparently also a workshop for the production of copper-based items. The latter can only be hypothesized because of the remains recovered from some not yet fully excavated areas, behind the North/North-East wall, in which the waste from the workshops was dumped. Other remains suggest that in one or more rooms of the Roman architectural structure gold was also worked. Well organized and efficient Lombardic workshops for so many different productions, connected to each other and competently provided with water and possibly fuel for their various needs, dated to this period have never been identified and thoroughly studied before. This article presents the analysis data of the materials from the excavation, which allows the reconstruction of the different glass working processes carried out on this site.

Pompeii and the Roman villa: art and culture around the Bay of Naples

From the second century BC onwards, prominent Romans retreated to their villas around the Bay of Naples, a popular holiday spot for relaxation and relief from the pressures of business. The magnificent contents of these sumptuously appointed villas and townhouses are the subject of this book, and with them the breadth and richness of cultural and artistic life in the region. An international team of experts is brought together here to examine this rich corpus of ancient Roman sculpture, paintings, mosaics and luxury arts. Two related themes are interwoven through their essays: the influence of classical Greece upon Roman art and culture and the much later resurgence of this taste for the antique in the modern world.

Beiträge zur frühbyzantinischen Profanarchitektur aus Hadrianupolis – Blütezeit unter Kaiser Iustinian I

Abstract Hadrianoupolis lies on the principal western route from the Central Anatolian Plain through the mountains to Bartın and the Black Sea, 3 km west of the modern town of Eskipazar, near Karabük, in Roman Paphlagonia. It was a small but important site which controlled this major route and dominated a rich agricultural, especially vinicultural, enclave. In 2003 the local Archaeological Museum of Ereğli began a small-scale salvage excavation of the newly discovered main church of Hadrianoupolis, known as “Early Byzantine Church B”, situated in the centre of the ancient city. Only the floor and foundation levels are preserved. The church was erected probably in the early 6th century AD and may have still been in use as late as the 7th century. The most important discoveries at Church B were the floor mosaics which show personifications of four Biblical rivers: Euphrates, Tigris, Phison and Geon. Animals, floral and geometric designs, and an extensive inscription are also represented. In 2006 archaeological excavations were begun in Hadrianoupolis by a team from the Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir, under the direction of Dr Ergün Laflı. As a result of our 2005 surveys, it has now been confirmed that Hadrianoupolis lay indeed on the site of modern Eskipazar, with finds dating from the 1st century B.C. to the 8th century A.D. It also was determined that the core of the ancient city extended as far as the modern village of Budaklar and the surrounding districts of Hacı Ahmetler, Çaylı and Eleler, along the Eskipazar-Mengen highway for 8 km east-west and 3 km north-south. The chora of Hadrianoupolis is much more extensive in size. The field surveys in 2005 identified the remains of at least 24 buildings at the site. Among them are two bath buildings of the Late Roman period, two Early Byzantine churches, a fortified structure of the Byzantine period, a theatre (?), a vaulted building, a domed building and some domestic buildings with mosaic floors. In 2006 trenches were opened to investigate two of the best preserved of these buildings: Bath A and Early Byzantine Church A. In 2007 “Bath A”, “Bath B”, a Late Roman villa, an absidal Early Byzantine building, as well as two Roman monumental rock-cut graves, were excavated. The 2006–2007 campaigns have established that Hadrianoupolis was a fortified regional centre during the late Roman and early Byzantine period (5th–7th centuries), when it can easily be defined as a “polis” with civic buildings and a fairly large urban population, as well as an extensive agrarian rural population. Most of the visible surface remains belong to this period.

Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples. An Exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples. An Exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

El final de las “villae” en “Hispania” (siglos IV–VII D.C.) (review)

Reviewed by: El final de las “villae” en “Hispania” (siglos IV–VII D.C.) Damian Fernández El final de las “villae” en “Hispania” (siglos IV–VII D.C.) Alexandra Chavarría Bibliothèque de l’Antiquité Tardive 7. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007. Pp. 313, ISBN 978–2-503–51735–3. Our understanding of late antique Iberia has changed dramatically in the last few decades. Whereas earlier interpretations concentrated on the devastating effects of the fifth-century “barbarian invasions,” more recent publications tend to argue that the “end of Roman Iberia” resulted from a combination of invisible social changes combined with the historical events from the fourth through the sixth centuries. Within this latter framework, this book by Alexandra Chavarría analyzes the demise of the ubiquitous late Roman rural aristocratic residence, the villa, in the Iberian Peninsula. Chavarría’s study begins with the complicated issues of property structure, internal economy, and the landowning class in Iberia (chapters two to four). She synthesizes secondary literature on these topics and sometimes illustrates them with Iberian evidence, including the limited number of written documents on which we have to rely. For example, the only concrete evidence we have of property structure in late antique Iberia is the sixth-century testament of Vincent of Huesca. Likewise, the identification of barbarian landowners depends on the ethnic interpretation of artifacts and burials that, as Chavarría herself acknowledges, can hardly be ascribed to a specific group, Roman or barbarian. The next three chapters are devoted to the description and evolution of villae as archaeological sites. In contrast with the previous section, these chapters show the wealth of archaeological material available for the study of late antique Iberia. Chavarría focuses on residential, leisure, and religious buildings, not because of neglect of other parts of the villa but because excavations unfortunately concentrate mostly on the “seigniorial” spaces. And yet, are these residential areas the only parts of the villa centers? How can we explain the presence, in many villa sites, of artifacts related to centralized production and storage of agricultural products? One should not dismiss the possibility that productive areas and workers’ quarters were built of perishable materials and are therefore archeologically invisible, almost invisible in surveys. [End Page 174] Yet, archaeologists have been able to find traces of wooden huts in other post-Roman sites whereas they usually have failed to find them in late Roman villae. The following three chapters constitute the core of Chavarría’s thesis, the end of the villa, and are consistent with her many previous publications on this topic. Her analysis is based on an impressive corpus of more than a hundred villae, with different levels of quality in their excavations (the reader will benefit from the detailed catalogue of sites at the end of the book). Chavarría’s arguments can be summed up as follows. The abandonment of villae as aristocratic residences must not be associated with the so-called barbarian invasions of the third and fifth centuries, but with internal evolutionary developments of Iberian society, developments that varied along regional lines. In what we can call “Mediterranean Iberia”—the province of Tarraconensis, the Levantine area, and Baetica—many villae lost their aristocratic residential character during the third and fourth centuries. Their rooms and halls were transformed for production activities. A handful of villae, however, were turned into monumental aristocratic residences, in the same way as in many other areas of the Roman west. Chavarría believes that these changes mirrored property concentration in fewer aristocratic hands, a historiographical topic that has gained considerable ascendancy in recent scholarship. In other words, changes in villa sites would indicate that those who acquired new properties would not have needed more than one residential unit. These few surviving residential villae then were slowly abandoned through the fifth, sixth, and even seventh centuries. The second region considered in Chavarría’s study includes the interior plateau and the fertile plains of Lusitania. Here, the fourth and early fifth centuries witnessed an explosion of new aristocratic villae. In contrast to the Mediterranean area, newly built residential buildings were the norm rather than the exception. The abandonment of villae as residential areas only...

Le strigile en Gaule, objet utilitaire et vecteur de romanité : l’exemple du strigile de la villa des Champs-de-Choisy à Charny (Seine-et-Marne)

A Roman villa, built during the Augustan period and occupied until the first years of the 4th century A. D., was discovered during an excavation at Charny •les Champs-de-Choisy” (Seine-et-Marne) in 2004. The numerous finds from the ditches of the first enclosure include a limestone anthropomorphic bust, a fragmentary stela and a damask strigil. The presence of this artefact raises a number of questions about the site, as there seems to have been no public baths in the area until the second half of the 1st century A. D. However the associated finds give a fair idea of the symbolism of this type of artefact and provide new evidence concerning the Roman status of the villa’s landowners.

Landscape formation in a Mediterranean country of the Middle Ages. Changes and continuity in Catalonia between the sixth and the fifteenth century

ABSTRACT The history of settlements in Catalonia during medieval times bears a strong resemblance to that of other Mediterranean European countries. The origins of these medieval settlements can be traced to when Roman villae were abandoned during the Visigothic times. The work done so far proves that, up to the eleventh century, one could find, apart from cities, the presence of a large number of hamlets scattered throughout the territory and an equally large number of churches. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a network of settlements was consolidated around churches and castles in relation to new villages. Additionally, many areas saw an increase in scattered farmsteads. In those areas conquered by the Muslims, there was continuity in the types of settlement. As in Europe, the crisis of the fourteenth century brought about the abandonment of some villages and many farmsteads.

Nuevos documentos epigráficos del valle del Duero: un altar dedicado a Plutón y una estela funeraria <i>rubricata</i>

This note presents two epigraphic documents. One is a votive altar consecrated as Dis Pater to the hell god Pluto. This was found in the West part of Soria province, between the towns of Clunia and Uxama, and affords an eloquent example from a cult scarcely documented in the epigraphy of Hispania. The other is an small funerary limestone with still keeps evidences of rubricatio . Up to now this is the only inscription related to the Roman villa at Almenara de Adaja (Valladolid).

Romano-British wall paintings: Raman spectroscopic analysis of fragments from two urban sites of early military colonisation

Raman spectroscopic analyses of 1st century AD Romano-British villa wall-painting fragments from two important military and early urban centres at Colchester and Lincoln have demonstrated some interesting contrasts in technique and palette usage. Colchester, the earliest fortified settlement, developed a sophisticated painting and craft industry compared with Lincoln in the assimilation of novel substrate preparation ideas and pigment adoption. The earliest use of the rather rare purple mineral pigment, caput mortuum, hitherto reported in only a few Roman villas elsewhere in mainland Europe, is in evidence in this early phase settlement and the use of gypsum as a special ground preparation agent as an additive to the more common limewash putty to enhance the effect of the use of lazurite as a pigment is worthy of note in this context. Otherwise, the pigments are seen to be those that are quite normally encountered in Roman villas, namely, haematite, goethite, terre verte, and carbon. The results of this study indicate that at Colchester there was a continued development in technique into the colonial phase compared with a stagnation in Lincoln; these scientific results have created a stimulus for further historical research into pigment and techniques development for wall paintings at the fringe of the Roman Empire in the 1st–3rd Centuries AD.

Primer balance de las actuaciones arqueológicas en el Pozo de la Cañada (2002-2005)

Aunque las intervenciones de arqueología preventiva llevadas a cabo en El Pozo de la Cañada (Guareña, Badajoz) sólo han documentado una parte muy reducida del yacimiento, abren interesantes perspectivas sobre el proceso de transformación del campo emeritense entre los siglos I-IX. En efecto, los resultados muestran una ocupación mucho más dilatada y compleja que la que los datos de los primeros años del s. XX hacían suponer. La información con la que contamos es muy fragmentaria debido a una estratigrafía notablemente perturbada y numerosas soluciones de continuidad entre los diferentes sectores. Por ello, sólo podemos atisbar algunos aspectos de la vida cotidiana desarrollada en torno a una villa romana y su continuidad en la tardoantigüedad y el principio del Emirato.

Geographic information systems in archaeological analysis: a predictive model in the detection of rural Roman villae

This paper describes the experimental model that formed the basis for the author's PhD thesis. The main goal of the work is the implementation of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in archaeological research. A survey of the state of the art was undertaken to enable an assessment of the model to be tried out and how implementation should be undertaken. The problem encountered then, and which still persists, is that data that are sufficiently reliable for archaeological purposes are hard to come by, in digital format.

Colonialism and Landscape: Population dynamics and Land Use in Northern Tunisia under Roman and French Rule

Within the framework of a Geographical Information System (GIS) study applied to the landscapes of the Qlibya and Beja regions of Northern Tunisia, the author investigates the programme of Roman agricultural colonisation (146 B.C.–A.D. 439): the expropriation of land, the re-structuring of the countryside into ager (arable), saltus (pasture), and bad lands put under cultivation (olive, vine, wheat, and fruit trees) by the distribution of plots of land to army veterans regulated by agrarian laws promulgated by the Antonines and Severi and engraved on stelae uncovered near imperial estates in the Beja region. The Roman villa was integrated into a commercial system of distribution of agricultural produce linking the cities to their 'territorial zones'. The European colonists who settled in Tunisia during the French Protectorate (1881–1956) used the Roman precedent as a model, in particular deliberately establishing farms on the same locations as the villae. The agricultural regime thrived under Roman and French occupation, but with such intensity that the environment was ultimately degraded by soil impoverishment, particularly by erosion on unterraced steep slopes: the ultimate perverse gifts of colonialism.

Gas chromatographic and mass spectrometric investigations of organic residues from Roman glass unguentaria

A combination of gas chromatographic (GC) and mass spectrometric (MS) techniques, including direct exposure-MS (DE-MS), high-temperature GC–MS (HTGC–MS) and GC–MS of neutral and acid fractions, was employed to study the composition and recognise origin of the organic materials used to manufacture balm residues surviving in a series of glass unguentaria recovered from excavations of a Roman villa (Villa B) in the ancient town of Oplontis (Naples, Italy). DE-MS provided comprehensive ‘fingerprint’ information on the solvent soluble components of the contents of the unguentaria, while GC–MS analyses provided detailed molecular compositions, highlighting the presence of a wide range of compound classes including mid- and long-chain fatty acids, long-chain hydroxy-acids, n-alkanols, alkandiols, n-alkanes, long-chain monoesters, phytosterols and diterpenoid acids. Characteristic biomarkers and their distributions indicate the presence of beeswax, Pinaceae resin and another wax, as the main organic constituents of all of the preparations examined. In particular, the occurrence of phytosterols and long-chain monoesters, in which the acyl moiety was not exclusively palmitic acid, suggested the presence of a second waxy-lipid constituent of plant origin. The results are consistent with beeswax being used in the preparation of the cosmetics preserved in the unguentaria, while the other lipids are most likely the residue of some as yet unidentified plant extract(s), possibly deriving from the cuticular waxes of flowers and/or leaves. The composition of the extracts are consistent with the ancient practices of maceration and/or “enfleurage”, in which lipid-based materials, such as beeswax, animal fat or vegetables oils, were used to extract aromatic and fragrant substances from resin, flowers, spices and scented wood, in order to produce unguents and balms.

Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture. Contexts, Subjects, and Styles (review)

Reviewed by: Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture. Contexts, Subjects, and Styles Catherine M. Keesling Sheila Dillon . Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture. Contexts, Subjects, and Styles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii + 217. Cloth (ISBN 0-521-85498-9) US$ 95.00. The book under review, a revised version of Dillon's 1994 Institute of Fine Arts dissertation, promises a timely English-language treatment of the evidence for the portrait statues of ancient Greece, as they were and as they lived on in Roman copies made for Roman contexts. It is neither a comprehensive study of ancient Greek portrait sculpture, nor an introductory survey, as the title might lead us to expect. What the book does offer, however, is a creative study centered on what can be inferred about the lost art of Greek portraiture from a catalogue of 108 portraits of unknown Greek subjects, most of them Roman "copies" executed in a Classical or Hellenistic Greek style by unknown sculptors, presumably working for Roman patrons. The result is a sharply focused contribution of sophistication and insight, equipped with dense narrative footnotes. While acknowledging the importance of Gisela Richter's three-volume 1965 catalogue The Portraits of the Greeks as a foundation and a resource (it is now available in a revised one-volume version edited by R.R.R. Smith), Dillon at the same time rightly observes that Richter's principal of reconstructing lost Greek bronze portraits of famous men has limited the scope of inquiry into whom Greek portraits really represented, what they looked like, and what both the Greeks and the Romans did with them. Though some of the Greek "anonymi" whose portrait images are surveyed here probably did represent famous subjects, we have no way of [End Page 312] knowing who they were because the Roman versions did not include inscribed name labels. More surprisingly, perhaps, Dillon argues against the approach of Paul Zanker in his Sather Lectures (published as The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity [Berkeley/Los Angeles 1995]). In Dillon's view, Zanker is wrong to conclude that the Greek sculptors of the Classical period tried to make their portraits look alike, in the interest of presenting all male portrait subjects as illustrations of the ideal citizen. He also puts too much faith in our ability to arrive at precise stylistic dates for either the lost Greek originals or their Roman marble copies. Dillon, basing her observations upon careful autopsy of the material in her catalogue, demonstrates a willingness to move beyond these two approaches to Greek portraiture, which arguably have far more to do with what modern scholarship would like Greek portraiture to have been than what the realia (bronze originals, inscribed statue bases, and Roman marble copies) show it to be. After the introductory chapter laying out the author's goals, Chapters 2 and 3, "Making Portraits of the Greeks" and "Displaying Portraits of the Greeks," approach Greek portraits in what may seem like reverse order, by starting with what we know of them from Roman copies and contexts; in fact, this is a more honest method than traditional approaches, in which claims are made about Greek portraiture while trying to acknowledge as little as possible the role of Roman evidence. Dillon first illustrates through three detailed case studies her approach to the typological and stylistic grouping of anonymous portrait heads in marble. After a brief consideration of what we know about Hellenistic Greek portrait galleries (very little indeed), Dillon proceeds to single out the collections of Greek portraits displayed in two Roman villas for closer analysis. The large collection of portraits of 36 Greek subjects in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum may have been atypical in its subject selection, with several one-of-a-kind portraits and some portrait subjects that still cannot be identified. The collection of portrait herms from the Villa of Cassius at Tivoli, on the other hand, showed a marked preference for portraits of the most popular Classical Greek subjects, but the different formats of the herms in the collection suggest that it was built up of pieces acquired at different times and from different sources. The selection of portrait subjects in...

Una inscripción y un dibujo sobre ladrillo hallados en la villa romana de Veranes (Gijón, Asturias)

This paper aims to present a new inscription and a drawing showing curtains as a decorative motif, both drawn in charcoal on a brick. These two pieces come from the archaeological diggings in the Roman Villa of Veranes (Gijon, Asturias).

Common‐ and multi‐offset ground‐penetrating radar study of a Roman villa, Tourega, Portugal

AbstractA ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) survey was conducted at the site of the first to fourth century AD Roman villa of Tourega, near Évora, Alentejo region, Portugal. This site has been partially excavated, revealing a bathhouse complex consisting of a tank reservoir, multiple bathing rooms and a major corridor. The excavated portion of Tourega provides direct archaeological feedback as to the size, shape, depth and orientation of structures revealed by GPR surveys. A 4500 m2 area surrounding the known site was surveyed using common‐offset 500 MHz and 200 MHz pseudo‐three‐dimensional acquisition. Amplitude time‐slice analysis reveals a large number of well‐defined additional structures confirming a much broader extension of the site. For shallow buried rectilinear structural targets, the high frequency 500 MHz common‐offset data provide excellent imaging. However, limited depth penetration at 500 MHz necessitated a lower frequency of investigation; therefore 200 MHz common‐ offset and multi‐offset data were also acquired. Two 200 MHz multi‐offset GPR profiles were obtained over the large double‐walled structure identified on the time‐slices, acquired using a newly proposed multi‐offset acquisition technique – rapid multi‐offset acquisition. This acquisition technique uses the existing single‐channel GPR system, is extremely cost‐effective, and easily acquires a high fold. Rapid multi‐offset acquisition provides an average time saving up to five times that of stationary multi‐offset profiling. The 200 MHz multi‐offset profiles provide a greater depth penetration and enhanced structural detail (i.e. improved imaging of dipping structures) than comparable 200 MHz common‐offset profiles. Post‐stack, inverse‐Q filtering increases vertical resolution and interpretability of the multi‐offset sections via removal of wavelet dispersion. Although multi‐offset data are less feasible for characterizing this site in three dimensions because of the large time commitment in data collection, two multi‐offset profiles over key structures of interest improved the final site interpretation, with enhanced image quality and higher resolution than comparable common‐offset profiles. The combined results of the multi‐offset survey with a common‐offset grid should encourage a more frequent use of multi‐offset data at archaeological sites when the depth extent of the archaeological site is uncertain. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stonehenge: the biography of a landscape

More than a million people visit the Stonehenge World Heritage Site every year, pondering the stones and soaking up the surrounding landscape. When was it built? Who built it? What was it? How did it work? Here Timothy Darvill argues that around 2600 BC local communities transformed an existing sanctuary into a cult centre that develped a big reputation: perhaps as an oracle and healing place. For centuries people came from near and far, and even after activities at the site began to decline the memory lived on and people chose to be buried within sight of the stones. But Stonehenge itself is only part of a story that involves the whole landscape. People first came to the area during the last Ice Age nearly half a million years ago. Long before Stonehenge was built they were erecting posts, digging pits to contain sacred objects, and constructing long mounds to house their dead. By the Age of Stonehenge this was a heavily occupied landscape with daily life focused along the River Avon. Later, farms and hamlets were established, Roman villas came and went, and from about AD 1000 the pattern of villages dotted along the valleys and the town of Amesbury came to prominence. In the last hundred years or so the army established training grounds and camps, but the biggest battles in recent years have been over the future of the Stonehenge landscape. Timothy Darvill is Professor of Archaeology in the School of Conservation Sciences at Bournemouth University and has been involved with Stonehenge and its management for more than 20 years. Previous books included Prehistoric Britain (1994), the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (2002), and Long barrows of the Cotswolds and surrounding areas (The History Press, 2004). He has served as Chairman of the Institute of Field Archaeologists and was a Member of the Council of the National Trust. Current research interests focus on archaeological resource management and the Neolithic of northwest Europe. His is director of the Billown Neolithic Landscape Project working in the Isle of Man.

The Victory-Gem from Lullingstone Roman Villa

A Roman cornelian intaglio once set in a gold signet ring, excavated at the Lullingstone Roman villa, Kent, is discussed, its iconography evaluated and its significance reassessed. It is concluded that it was the personal seal of Publius Helvius Pertinax, governor of Britannia in AD 185–86 and subsequently (in 193) Emperor.

The Victory-Gem from Lullingstone Roman Villa

A Roman cornelian intaglio once set in a gold signet ring, excavated at the Lullingstone Roman villa, Kent, is discussed, its iconography evaluated and its significance reassessed. It is concluded that it was the personal seal of Publius Helvius Pertinax, governor of Britannia in AD 185–86 and subsequently (in 193) Emperor.

Ancient DNA from domestic animal species remains: preliminary approaches

DNA analysis from ancient and old remains offers new tools to answer archaeozoological questions and investigate the origin of the genetic variability in domestic animal species. Molecular genetics techniques contribute to identify the species supporting classical osteological studies and to establish the relationship to modern species and breeds.Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences are useful to reconstruct the history of maternal lineages comparing haplotype variations of present and old DNA samples. Mitochondrial data from modern cattle populations show a high diversity in Anatolia and in the Middle East supporting a near-Eastern matrilineal centre of origin. On the contrary in Europe a single family of mitochondrial haplotypes strongly dominates.A number of recent studies reported the successful recovery of ancient and old nuclear DNA (nuDNA) sequences. Such studies represent an important breakthrough, as nuDNA can be used for the characterisation of genetic loci directly involved in phenotypic traits, answering challenging questions. A bright example is offered by the study on the single nuclear exon of melanocortin type 1 receptor gene from a ca. 43,000 years old mammoth bone from Siberia, showing that mammoth populations were polymorphic with regard to hair colour, harbouring both dark and light haired animals.In contrast, these studies on ancient and old DNA sequences need great caution, due to the analytical problems caused by post-mortem damage of DNA, contamination from exogenous sources of mt- and nuDNA, and the consequent reliability of observed polymorphisms.The present research describes the preliminary analytical approach to DNA study of faunal remains (103 animal bones of different domestic species: Bos taurus 51; Ovis aries/Capra hircus 39; Sus scrofa/Sus domesticus 10; Gallus gallus 1; Equus caballus/Equus sp. 2), collected in seven archaeological sites located within the province of Trento, in the Alpine region of Trentino Alto-Adige (N-E Italy). The chosen sites, dating from the Bronze Age to the late Middle Ages, display different settlement typology and include Iron Age retic houses, votive Bronze Age contexts, a 4th century roman villa and several 13th century medieval buildings. Archaeozoological data will be collected on species, skeletal parts, age of slaughter, method of butchery, evidence of bone working and presence of paleopathologies. We describe the analytical procedure used in preparing and collecting samples and in extracting and analysing DNA from a subset of the bones previously described.