The Use of Potsherds for Interpreting Alluvial Deposits: A Case Study in the Adige River Basin (Italy)
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The Use of Potsherds for Interpreting Alluvial Deposits: A Case Study in the Adige River Basin (Italy) C.Balista, S.T.Levi, A.Vanzetti, and M.Vidale The paper discusses the use of a small assemblage of potsherds as evidence of fluvial erosion and indicators of microstratigraphical and geomorphological processes. The potsherds, sandwiched between 2 alluvial deposits, provide dating criteria for the two stratigraphic units, very important for understanding the geomorphology of the whole region. By integrating evidence of negative interfaces on potsherds by fluvial erosion and sedimentological evidence, it is possible to reconstruct the local stratigraphic formation processes. Furthermore, the paper discusses some theoretical implications of this case study for stratigraphic analysis. Negative interfaces produced by erosion on sediments and ceramics are considered in the same analytical framework; in both cases, they represent cumulative units preserving the record of complex stratigraphic processes. Far from being simple limits marking gaps in sedimentary deposition, erosive interfaces are very particular types of strata to be recorded and studied with geoarchaeological methods and with the same detail of traditional sedimentary units.
Introduction Some of the authors are currently involved in a project of archaeological survey in the Valli Grandi Veronesi, a wide stretch of reclaimed old marshy bottom lands in the southern part of Verona district of the Veneto floodplain, north-eastern Italy (Fig. 1). The project is aimed at defining the nature of settlement strategies from Early Bronze Age (end of the IIIrd to beginning of the lInd millennium BC) to the Roman period (Balista et al. 1988; De Guio et al. 1989). Such an analysis is performed by a detailed study of the morphogenetic development of the floodplain area. Iron Age sites (ca. 900-200 BC) have not been found. One of the major goals of the project is the definition of the geoarchaeological units that, at a local and regional scale, mark the fall of a dense and evenly distributed occupation of Middle-Late Bronze Age period (ca. 1600-1200 BC). The definition of such units is also relevant for the study of the Roman occupation, that here conforms only partially to the classic grid-like Roman pattern of agricultural land partitioning (Calzolari 1986). In this context, alluvial events, such as the one described here, are a major variable in geomorphological evolution; their dating has a fundamental importance for building a chronostratigraphic framework based a micro-regional approach. In 1986, hydraulic maintenance works near the hamlet of Torretta Veneta required the re-excavation of the bed of a lateral channel debouching into the Tartaro river, the main water course draining the Valli Grandi Veronesi. Aside the channel was found a group of 10 potsherds, lying over a stratigraphic boundary surface, or interface in the sense of Harris (1979) between two alluvial layers, far from any anthropic deposit in primary context of deposition (Fig. 2). The potsherds (all
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