Medi Jones-Williams is a PhD Researcher in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol.
The third annual excavation of Falerii Novi Project (FNP) took place from May 27 to June 21 2024.
Thanks to the SWWDTP placement fund, I had the opportunity to volunteer in a diverse team of archaeologists led by experts from:
- The British School at Rome (BSR);
- The Institute of Classical Studies (School of Advanced Study, University of London);
- Harvard University;
- The University of Toronto.
The FNP offers a unique window into the dynamic relationship between a fully mapped Roman city, its population, and environs.
The site’s abandonment history has preserved stratigraphic contexts that chart urban evolution chronologically from the Roman Republic through to the medieval era.
Aerial drone photo of city wall and dig area, Falerii Novii (Image: Falerii Novi Project)
I was attracted to the project because it is focused on everyday lifeways within the context of a monumental city’s transformation over centuries of reuse and adaptation. According to historical sources (see Andrews et al. 2023), the city’s earliest inhabitants had been resettled there by the Romans.
I was intrigued to see if there were any parallels in the material culture from a city close to the centre of empire, compared with those in the province of Roman Britain, the geographic focus of my PhD project.
In addition, the 2024 season focused on three areas that holistically reflected daily Roman life: the Macellum (meat market), Forum Tabernae (area of shops/bars), and a Domus (elite house), providing a fascinating variety of finds and contextual information.
Multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaboration
The FNP is notable for its multidisciplinary approach, involving various specialisms that were documented and regularly communicated to the public through social media and traditional press. As part of this, I wrote and published updates on the FNP Twitter/X showcasing the integrated work of surveyors, pottery specialists, and experts in archaeobotany and zooarchaeology.
Spending time with ceramics from each area provided me with transferable knowledge for comparative analyses in my own research (my PhD project involves carrying out organic residue analysis on Roman pottery).
This year, the project also launched an environmental archaeology field school. Their contribution facilitated the efficient processing of soil samples systematically collected from each excavation area throughout the season.
Tavernae 4 and 5
As a member of the BSR team excavating Area 5, we discovered a wealth of artefacts that will help develop the chronology of the Forum Tabernae, an economic zone in the Roman city. The upper stratigraphic layers of Tabernae 4 and 5 revealed the reuse of the space, including evidence for metalworking.
Cleaning the East-West road revealed deep ruts from centuries of use, poorly patched areas with smaller stones juxtaposed against large, original basalt slabs, illustrating the evolving nature of the site.
Agricultural activity, such as a deep plough mark running across the top course of the East-West running tufa wall of the tabernae block, illustrates changing priorities of people working in the zone that once contained bars and shops.
Coins provide approximate dates of specific contexts, aiding in understanding how the zone was reused in later periods. Bulk finds included pottery in various forms recovered from primary and residual deposits, which I was then able to clean as part of the post-excavation process.
Spending time with the ceramic assemblage benefitted my knowledge of Roman pottery types, which is fundamental to my own research, as the same ceramics can be found across the empire.
BSR team excavating Area 5 (Image: Falerii Novi Project)
City and countryside: a symbiotic relationship
One of the primary aims of the excavation was to understand the evolving relationship between Falerii Novi and its surrounding countryside, examining subaltern lifeways on a holistic scale. Systematic environmental sampling using flotation and heavy residue analysis revealed plant and animal macro-remains and carbon.
Charred organic remains highlighted the diversity in diets and subsistence practices, providing insights into the landscape and climate surrounding the ancient city.
Zooarchaeological remains underscored the interconnectedness between humans and non-human inhabitants of Falerii Novi, with animal remains particularly abundant in medieval contexts of the Macellum. This was particularly interesting to me as my literature review has included multiple sources of information on Romano-British foodways, with organic macro-remains being an elusive yet integral part of our current understanding of foodways in Roman Britain.
Looking forwards
Falerii Novi represents adaptation and resilience by local communities under the Romans. Despite being geographically distant, this can be applied to Roman Britain, where communities were also subject to Roman imperialism.
The city of Falerii Novi and its surroundings also offer invaluable insights into the enduring bond between urban and rural life, for example in the form of foodways and use of natural resources. This is equally important for my own project, which examines foodways in Roman Britain via organic residue analysis.
From its Republican origins to medieval transformations, Falerii Novi and its environs have been in constant dialogue, shaping and reshaping each other over time.
These lessons can inform interdisciplinary research within and beyond the SWWDTP as they remind us of human and non-human entanglements in the face of changing climate, shifts in city use post-COVID, and geopolitical dynamics.
Find out more
- For more information about Falerii Novi and ongoing research, visit the Falerii Novi Project.
- Follow the project on Twitter/X.
- My research and extracurricular activities can be followed on Instagram.
Bibliography
- Andrews, M., S. Bernard, E. Dodd, B. Fochetti, S. Kay, P. Liverani, M. Millett and F. Vermeulen (2023) ‘The Falerii Novi Project’, Papers of the British School at Rome 91, pp. 9–34. doi:10.1017/S0068246223000053.
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