La vita quotidiana dell'Età del Bronzo attraverso lo studio dei reperti di origine vegetale: due siti del Bronzo Medio del Veneto a confronto

Archaeological domestic contexts represent an important opportunity to obtain information on the use of plants and space by ancient communities. Living spaces are indeed the fundamental place where everyday life takes place and where activities related to the production, storage and consumption of goods are carried out. The aim of this study is to improve knowledge on various aspects of daily life in Bronze Age communities through the study of plant finds recovered from two sites with domestic contexts in northern Italy: Oppeano – Via Isolo site “4D” (VR) and the Muraiola di Povegliano Veronese (VR). Both sites date back to the Middle Bronze Age (1650 – 1350/1300 BCE) and are located in the higher part of the Po valley, place of development of the important Terramare Culture. Thanks to recent investigations and excavations as part of the ERC CoG project ‘GEODAP’ - GEOarchaeology of DAily Practices, new archaeobotanical sampling was carried out in the living contexts at the two sites. The Oppeano “4D” site has yielded some of the best evidence of domestic structures for the Italian Bronze Age. Thanks to the wet conditions of the deposits, nine well-preserved structures (defined as “byre-houses”) were identified. Many plant macroremains were sampled inside each structure, including high amounts of charcoal, non-charred wood, seeds and fruits, found both in charred and non-charred form. The Muraiola di Povegliano Veronese (VR) site is a protohistoric settlement recently the subject of new archaeological research thanks to the GEODAP project. The site is characterized by good drainage conditions, due to the presence of soils consisting mainly of sands and gravels of fluvial and fluvioglacial origin. The archaeobotanical assemblage is composed mainly by burnt macro-remains mostly referable to charcoals and to cultivated cereal species. Mineralised wood fragments are also very common. The general findings from the two sites allow us to reconstruct the subsistence economy and some of the activities that were carried out on a daily basis. The subsistence economy in the Oppeano “4D” and Muraiola sites was mainly based on the cultivation of different cereal species, such as emmer, einkorn, “new type” wheat, naked and hulled barley. Millet cultivation at the Muraiola appears to be very important and in general the data demonstrate the purely agricultural vocation of this site. Alongside cultivated species, at the Oppeano “4D” site, there is much evidence of the gathering of wild herbs and fruits, important for both human and animal nutrition. The considerable amount of plant material recovered from the two study sites made it possible to document agricultural activities carried out periodically in a domestic setting, results that were entirely new for both sites.