## 3 Results and Discussion
### Understanding Archaeological Context: The First Step toward a Tailored Selection of Materials
The result is often a multiplicity of hypotheses regarding the import of objects from other sites and, when no comparisons can be found with other sites, the risk is to hypothesise local productions without sound archaeological evidence. Recent studies have highlighted the potential associated with adopting a synergistic transdisciplinary approach when working on multilayered contexts. The starting point is represented by an in-depth tailored archaeological study of the assemblage functional to identify distinctive shapes and their chronology. The results obtained by chronotypical study of the objects can, in fact, outline different scenarios to assess; the most common are those characterised by a) specific groups of objects with the same chronology; (b) a greater statistical incidence of a specific distinctive shape (or a few of them). Depending on whether the chronotypical study of the finds identifies one or the other scenario, key issues to which the archaeometric analyses will be called to contribute will be evaluated. An exhaustive example of the approach centred on the study of specific types of objects falling within the same chronological frame is provided by [PERSON] and colleagues [19]. The study aimed to investigate the production and import of glass objects in Bratislava involving finds of tableware and window glass. The preliminary archaeological study allowed the attribution of the finds to three main timeframes verified by the occurrence of distinctive shapes and decorative features: 13 th, late 13 th-14 th and mid-15 th century CE. The subsequent archaeometric investigations made it possible, for each of the examined periods, to ascertain the composition of the glass and to establish comparisons with chronologically compatible Central Europe productions shedding light on commercial and political orientations. The study is an example of how informative data can also be obtained by working on a small number of fragments, as long as well contextualised from a chronotypical perspective to set up comparison with the same types of objects found in other geographical areas. The same methodological approach has been applied to a first selection of materials from the monastic complex of San Severo in Classe (Ravenna, Italy) [4]. The chronotypical study of the material identified the occurrence of three particular types of glass objects, although not present in statistically high numbers: amoebules, nuppenbecher, and kropfflasche, dated to the 13 th-16 th century CE. The close similarities, in terms of chemical features, between these objects from San Severo and comparable finds from Czech Republic, further strengthened the hypothesis of commercial contact between Central Europe and Italy in the Middle Ages. The scope of both studies, focused on a few distinctive shapes, was to trace, through an interrelation between chronotypical and archaeometric study, contacts between two geographically distant areas, united by the occurrence of the same types of glass objects. The monastic complex of San Severo can be taken as an example of another approach applicable to archaeological glass, based on the study of one (or a few) statistically relevant shape(s). This is the case of the daily-use drinking glass beaker known as gambassino [5]. Recently published research aimed at deepening the historical, archaeological, and compositional knowledge between the variants of this object, found in two contemporary sites located at a distance of about 50 km from each other: the monastery of San Severo and the Montana castle (Brisighella, Ravenna, Italy). For both sites, the gambassino was the shape with the greatest statistical impact, accounting for over 70% of the entire assemblage of unearthed glass materials [14]. Moving from a local scale, the study then expanded to regional and transregional comparisons involving central-northern Italy and the Balkan side of the Adriatic Sea.