Tracing Nonlinear Settlement Development and Urbanization in Satricum (20 min)

Presenters

Marcello de Vos, University of Groningen; and Peter Attema, University of Groningen

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the trajectory of (proto-)urbanization in Satricum (Latium, Italy) between the ninth and sixth century B.C.E. Our research is based on unpublished settlement remains from the southern flank of the acropolis excavated by the University of Groningen in the 1980s and 1990s. This area has a long stratigraphic time-depth, including settlement remains and find materials from all phases between the foundation of the settlement and the late archaic city. Based on this rich record, we identify crucial turning points in the settlement development of the site. These are the remarkable earliest habitation phase, with a regular spatial organization of domestic structures and the transition to more organic hut clusters (ninth–eighth centuries B.C.E.); the emergence of large huts in the second half of the orientalizing period (seventh century B.C.E.); and finally the transition from huts to houses (sixth century B.C.E.).

Based on this unique sequence of habitation in a single area, we seek to better understand the complex trajectory of (proto-)urbanization in Latium, stepping away from an evolutionary and generalizing perspective on settlement development, opting instead for a nonlinear perspective. Our analysis will be supported by a discussion of contemporary developments in the burial ground, as this provides insight into the changing sociopolitical structure of the Satrican community.

From our approach we conclude that the initial structured occupation may be linked to the settlement's foundation, after which follows a more organic phase of social and functional adaptation in the advanced Iron Age. Only during the orientalizing period do signs of growing social stratification and urbanization start to appear in the archaeological record of Satricum, culminating in a radical restructuration of the settlement at the transition to the Archaic period.