Il contenuto di questa pagina è in inglese poichè è la lingua ufficiale dei progetti.
ZOF - Zona Franca. Ideas of Territory in the Carlingian Empire
Scientific responsibility: Katharina von Winckler
Supervisor: Giuseppe Albertoni
Period: 1/12/2022 - 30/11/2024
Sponsor: EC_REA
Call: HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01
Abstract: The project ZOF: Zona Franca – Ideas of territory in the Carolingian Empire will investigate and visualise early medieval ideas of territory, specifically in the south-eastern regions of the realm. ZOF will use a new and unique two-part approach: firstly, investigating early medieval source texts using theories of critical and discourse theories as well as cultural geography, and, secondly, applying techniques and methods from digital humanities, critical geography, and GIS to analyse the sources and visualise the research findings. This will permit a fresh view on early medieval territories and territoriality as represented in the written sources. One important step towards this is the inclusion of spatial narratives and terms that hitherto were cast aside as ‘not plausible’. All early medieval discourses on territory in the broadest sense will be included in ZOF. The resulting data will be stored in an open-access database and visualised in an interactive map application: ZOF-MAP. This application will use new and more accurate methods of visualising medieval territories than traditional historical maps or GIS: ZOF will be using methods of critical cartography, mental mapping, and deep mapping. As an open access online application, ZOF-MAP will reach a wider public and thus give a broader audience access to cutting edge historical research.
Mobility and Life histories in the Alps - Understanding prehistoric social strategies in mountain environment
Scientific responsibility: Giacomo Capuzzo
Supervisor: Diego Angelucci
Period: 1/03/2023 - 28/02/2025
Sponsor: EC_REA
Bando: HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01
Partner: Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Abstract: Several hundred sites dating from the 5th to the 2nd millennia BC have been identified in the eastern Italian Alps making them one of the best archaeologically-mapped regions among the European mountains. However, despite the large amount of residential and productive prehistoric sites, only few funerary contexts have been unearthed, and even fewer human remains have been studied using state of the art bioarchaeology (e.g. isotope analyses, DNA, etc.). Prehistoric burials found in the eastern Italian Alps represent a unique and exceptional source of information that can provide crucial knowledge on past human mobility and life histories in mountain environment. During this 4,000-year time span an increase of social complexity and an intensification of exchange networks are documented in this region, a buffer zone between the Mediterranean and the central Europe, crossed by major north-south routes (Adige-Eisack valleys), that implied an intensive movement of people, objects and ideas. The MOLA project aims to integrate Alpine Landscape Archaeology with state-of-the-art bioarchaeology and spatial modelling to understand how social strategies influenced human mobility and life histories from the Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age in mountain environment with a particular focus on the eastern Italian Alps. To tackle this research goal an innovative methodology based on the combined analysis of strontium (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen (d18O) and sulphur (d34S) isotope ratios in prehistoric cremated (87Sr/86Sr only) and inhumed human remains from the area and period under study is used. These are coupled with data from Alpine Landscape Archaeology on human-environment interactions (stratigraphic excavations, surveys, geomorphology, etc.) to shed light on social strategies and possible gender differences behind individual and collective mobility and life histories in the eastern Italian Alps during the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age.