Contrada Damale: a new type of Bronze Age settlement in Southern Italy
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2018-10-03

Successive landscape-archaeological studies by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology (GIA) have since 2002 recorded a cluster of 68 protohistoric pottery scatters in the Contrada Damale, a gently undulating sloping agricultural zone of ca. 200 hectares in the foothills overlooking the coastal plain of Sibari (Calabria, southern Italy). Intensive multi-disciplinary investigations of these scatters in the years 2010-2015 including re-surveys, geophysical work and soil studies, have allowed us to date 52 of these scatters to the last phase of the Bronze Age (Final Bronze Age; ca. 1150-950 BC) mainly by the presence of a particular type of large storage vessel. Some of these scatters are associated with rectangular geophysical anomalies interpreted as the foundations of hut walls, and shown to be of the same period. Until now, such storage vessels and rectangular structures were thought to be exclusive to large, central settlements with defensive features. 
We believe, and will argue in the paper, that this is caused by a persistent research bias towards the more obtrusive central places, and instead present the Contrada Damale settlement as the first example of a new settlement type for this period and region: the ‘open village’. We will discuss potential objections to this interpretation, and speculate on how it might have emerged from preceding Recent Bronze Age (ca. 1300-1150 BC) dispersed habitation and disappeared again in the Early Iron Age (ca. 950-725 BC), drawing on both theoretical considerations and evidence relating to the internal spatial distribution and variations in site size, assemblage, and associated subsurface remains.

Author: Dr de Neef, Wieke - University of Groningen (Presenting author)
Co-Author: Dr Van Leusen, Martijn - University of Groningen; Dr Armstrong, Kayt - University of Durham