Reusing Field Survey Data for New Questions: A Case Study from The Sibaritide Region (Calabria, Italy)

This contribution presents a case study about the reuse of archaeological field survey data from my ongoing PhD research, focused on the analysis of Southern Italy’s rural landscapes during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The primary goal of the project is to identify and explain large-scale diachronic patterns in the organisation of the countryside by comparing regional variations and similarities, based on pedestrian survey data.

In this poster, I look at the characteristics and significance of low-density pottery scatters, which are classified as ‘off-site’: these surface distributions are generally interpreted as important traces of long-term agricultural practices, temporal activities, or post-depositional actions. Therefore, they can contribute to reconstructing land-use strategies and contextualising the sites.

The two datasets analysed were collected between 2000 and 2014 in the Sibaritide region (northern Calabria, Italy) within the framework of different projects, one by the University of Groningen (Raganello Archaeological Project) and one by the University of Calabria (Castrovillari municipality). Each project used different methodologies, regarding for example sampling strategies and the definition of survey units. Having the possibility to access and query the primary databases of the projects, data selection and different approaches are utilised to answer the research questions. In addition, this project plans to merge the datasets by applying the mapping tools and standards developed by the Roman Hinterland Database Project, which created an integrated database for the suburbium of Rome.