RAE 2017 · THE ARCHAIC ROMAN ECONOMY (8TH – 4TH CENTURIES BC) SETTLEMENT PATTERNS, PRODUCTION AND TRADE IN AN EARLY MEDITERRANEAN STATE

The economic history of early Rome has been mainly investigated as a local phenomenon and often only on thebasis of literary evidence. We propose a long-term and regional approach: the early Roman economy as part of theeconomic history of central Tyrrhenian Italy from the 8th to the 4th century BC, and its interactions with the widerMediterranean networks of exchange.This aim will be achieved by means of the following objectives and methods.Objective 1: Systematic and critical review of the literary sources and of the scientific literature on thearchaeological evidence of settlements, land use, production and importation in the Low Tiber Valley between the10th and the 4th century BC.Objective 2: Intensive surveys in the Roman hinterland of three productive extra-urban Archaic settlements withintheir natural context: a farmhouse, a rural village and a coastal settlement.Objective 3: Archaeometric analysis of amphoras dating back to the 8th – 6th centuries BC and of Greek Geometric(or Greek Geometric style) pottery dating back to the 8th century BC found in Ancient Latium.Objective 5: Historical reconstruction of production, trade and consumption in Rome between the 8th and the 4thcentury BC; theorisation of new models for Iron Age and pre-monetary economies.