C8679 - ARCHEOLOGIA DEGLI ECOSISTEMI MEDIEVALI (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

Al termine del corso lo studente/la studentessa ha conoscenze generali e specifiche delle linee di sviluppo delle forme di insediamento in età medievale, attraverso le interazioni fra fenomeni storici e caratterizzazioni spaziali. Lo studente/la studentessa è in grado di utilizzare in modo appropriato dati archeologici, fonti e strumenti di tipo diverso; ha una conoscenza specifica e interdisciplinare dell'evoluzione dei sistemi insediativi e della loro realtà materiale ed è in grado di progettare e realizzare una comunicazione efficace dei contenuti specifici anche all'interno di gruppi di lavoro e contesti culturali eterogenei.

Course contents

The course explores the dynamic relationship linking settlements, landscape, climate, and environment in medieval Europe from an archaeological perspective.

It addresses key themes in the archaeology of medieval settlements (towns, villages, castles, dispersed sites, etc.) and examines issues related to the construction, negotiation, and transformation of ecosystems, understood as a complex synthesis of social, environmental, climatic, and political dynamics. 

The course adopts a European perspective but pays particular attention to the analysis of settlements and ecosystems in northern Italy, also through a comparative approach to the Alpine region and the Po Plain.

Topics covered include:

• The settlement networks and the environment in Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages, and the Late Middle Ages
• Landscape and environments in the 5th-15th centuries
• ‘Frontier’ settlements in the medieval period
• Typologies, materials, and techniques of urban and rural architecture
• Medieval fields and forests: carpological and anthracological analysis
• Archaeozoological datasets and the animal world of the Middle Ages
• Climate in the medieval period: stalagmites, peat bogs, ice cores
• Cultural ecology, historical ecology, political ecology: castle-building and resource exploitation in feudal Europe
• Archaeology of medieval disasters: floods, marshes, and land reclamation
• Archaeology of medieval mining landscapes

Readings/Bibliography

Required readings for attending students:

• Lecture materials and power-point slides
• A. AUGENTI, Archeologia dell’Italia Medievale, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2016 (capitoli 1-4, 7)

One of the following volumes (selected chapters only):

• P. FORLIN, The Medieval Alps. Landscape, People and Power in eastern Trentino, BAR Publishing, 2024 (Cap. 1-3; 8-10)
• M. PANATO, River and Society in Northern Italy: The Po Valley, 500-1000 AD, Routledge, 2024

• Two articles from the SELECTED READINGS (see below)

Required readings for non-attending students:

• A. AUGENTI, Archeologia dell’Italia Medievale, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2016

One of the following volumes:

• P. GALETTI, Uomini e case nel Medioevo tra Occidente e Oriente, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2020
  
• R. RAO, I paesaggi dell'Italia medievale, Roma, Carocci, 2015
• M. PANATO, River and Society in Northern Italy: The Po Valley, 500-1000 AD, Routledge, 2024

• Quattro saggi tra i CONTRIBUTI A SCELTA (vedi sotto)

LIST OF THE SELECTED READINGS (to be arranged with the lecturer):

• P. FORLIN, The Medieval Alps. Landscape, people and power in eastern Trentino, BAR Publishing, 2024, (Cap. 7, 8, 9)
• M.VALENTI (a cura di). Miranduolo in alta Val di Merse (Chiusdino-Si): archeologia su un sito di potere del Medioevo toscano, All’Insegna del Giglio, 2008: Capitoli 3.2. M. PUTTI Lo studio del paesaggio: analisi storiche e geoarcheologiche; 3.3 G. DI PASQUALE et al. (Analisi archeobotaniche); 3.4 F. SALVADORI (Analisi archeozoologiche).
• G. BIANCHI, R. HODGES (a cura di), The nEU-Med project: Vetricella, an Early Medieval royal property on Tuscany’s Mediterranean, All’Insegna del Giglio, 2020: capitoli di V. ANICETI (The zooarchaeological analyses); M.P BUONINCONTRI et al. (Medieval forest use and management)
• F. SAGGIORO (a cura di), Archeologia a Piuro. Scavi e ricerche su un paesaggio alpino di età medievale, All’Insegna del Giglio, 2025: capitoli di L. Arioli (L'estrazione della pietra ollare); E. Maccadanza (Il paesaggio della pietra ollare), F. Saggioro (Conclusioni. Piuro: storia e archeologia di un centro alpino nel Medioevo)
• E. POSSENTI, M. ANDREOLI, ‘Il sito altomedievale di Doss S. Agata a Trento: Le testimonianze archeologiche di età longobarda tra archeometallurgia e archeologia mineraria’, Archeologia Medievale, LII.2, 2025, pp. 79-89 (doi 10.36153/am52.2025.22)
• T. LEWIT, ‘Pigs, presses and pastoralism: farming in the fifth to sixth centuries AD’, Early Medieval Europe 17(1), 77–91 (2009)
• P. SQUATRITI, Rye’s Rise and Rome’s Fall: Agriculture and Climate in Europe during Late Antiquity. Late Antique Archaeology, 12(1), 160-169. (2016). https://doi.org/10.1163/22134522-12340072
• F.L. CHEYETTE, ‘The disappearance of the ancient landscape and the climate anomaly of the early Middle Ages: a question to be pursued’, Early medieval Europe 16(2), 127–165, (2008)
• M. ABBALLE; M. CAVALAZZI, P. MARANZANA ET AL. Approaching Marginal Landscapes in Archaeology: the Case of Ravenna’s Reclaimed Wetlands, «JOURNAL OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY», 2025, 50, pp. 680 - 699
  

Suggested further readings (optional):

Towns:

• A. AUGENTI, Città e porti dall’Antichità al Medioevo, Roma, 2010
• G.P. BROGIOLO, S. GELICHI, La città nell’alto medioevo italiano. Archeologia e Storia, Bari-Roma, Laterza, 1998
• H. ANDERSSON, ‘The development of medieval towns’, in M. CARVER, J. KLÁPŠTĚ, The Archaeology of Medieval Europe. Vol. 2: Twelfth to Sixteen Centuries, Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, 370-378
• SCHOLKMANN, ‘The anatomy of medieval towns’, in M. CARVER, J. KLÁPŠTĚ, The Archaeology of Medieval Europe. Vol. 2: Twelfth to Sixteen Centuries, Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, 379-408

Villages and rural settlements:

• P.GALETTI, Paesaggi, comunità, villaggi nell'Europa medievale, in P.GALETTI (a cura di), Paesaggi, comunità, villaggi medievali, Spoleto, CISAM, 2012, pp.1-22

• C. GERRARD, M. ASTON, Interpreting the English Village: Landscape and Community at Shapwick, Somerset, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2013.
• J. FERNÁNDEZ FERNÁNDEZ, M.FERNÁNDEZ MIER, (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe, BAR International, Oxford, 2019
• J. CHAPELOT, R. FOSSIER, Le Village et la maison au Moyen âge, Hachette, Paris, 1980
• F. SAGGIORO (a cura di), Nogara. Archeologia e storia di un villaggio medievale (Scavi 2003-2008): capitolo di F. Saggioro (L’area e la sequenza di scavo)

Castles:

• A.A. SETTIA, Castelli medievali, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2021
• I saggi di A.A. SETTIA e A. AUGENTI in A. AUGENTI, P. GALETTI (a cura di), L'incastellamento: storia e archeologia. A quarant'anni da Les structures di Pierre Toubert, Spoleto, CISAM, pp.3-35.
• R. FRANCOVICH, R. HODGES Villa to village: The transformation of the Roman countryside. London, Bristol Classical Press, 2003.
• M. JOHNSON (ed), Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages: Studies of Bodiam and Other Elite Landscapes in South-Eastern England, The Highfield Press, Southampton, 2017
• M.VALENTI (a cura di). Miranduolo in alta Val di Merse (Chiusdino-Si): archeologia su un sito di potere del Medioevo toscano, All’Insegna del Giglio, 2008 (Cap. 2 sulla sequenza archeologica)

'Frontier' settlements:

 

• P. FORLIN, The Medieval Alps. Landscape, people and power in eastern Trentino, BAR Publishing, Oxford, 2024, Cap. 8-9
• D. CURTIS, M. CAMPOPIANO, ‘Medieval land reclamation and the creation of new societies: comparing Holland and the Po Valley, c.800–c.1500’, Journal of Historical Geography 44: 93–108, 2014
• E. COSTELLO, ‘The colonisation of uplands in medieval Britain and Ireland: climate, agriculture and environmental adaptation’, Medieval Archaeology

65(1), 151–179. DOI:10.1080/00766097.2020.1826123, 2021

• A. PLUSKOWSKI, A.J. BOAS and C. GERRARD ‘The Ecology of Crusading: Investigating the Environmental Impact of Holy War and Colonisation at the Frontiers of Medieval Europe’, Medieval Archaeology, 55, 2011

Settlements and disasters:

• F. SAGGIORO, 2023 ‘Montagna, sistemi e dinamiche tra la valle e le alte quote: scavi e ricerche presso il sito di Piuro’ (SO), in DE Angelucci, E, Croce, M, Migliavacca and F Saggioro (eds), Montagne e archeologia, All’Insegna del Giglio, Firenze, 31–40.
• D. GRIFFITHS, ‘Medieval Coastal Sand Inundation in Britain and Ireland’, Medieval Archaeology 59, 2015
• C.M. GERRARD, P.FORLIN, A. GUTIERREZ et Al. ‘The archaeology of a landslide. Unravelling the Azores earthquake disaster of 1522 and its consequences’, European Journal of Archaeology 24(3), 388-411. doi:10.1017/eaa.2021.4 2021

Mines and quarries:

• C. CUCINI ET AL., ‘Argento, ferro, rame e zinco: i paesaggi minerari della Lombardia medievale (Italia del nord)’, Archeologia Medievale, LII.2, 2025, pp. 55-64 (doi 10.36153/am52.2025.20)

• L. CASAGRANDE, ‘Paesaggi minerari medievali del Trentino: sintesi delle recenti ricerche in campo storico-archivistico e archeo-minerario’, Archeologia Medievale, LII.2, 2025, pp. 65-78, (doi 10.36153/am52.2025.21)

• E. CIRELLI, E. GIORGI, D. SACCO, ‘Paesaggi minerari tra Romagna e Marche nel medioevo (V-XV secolo)’, Archeologia Medievale, LII.2, 2025, pp. 91-104(doi 10.36153/am52.2025.23)

Teaching methods

Lectures and seminar-based discussions on readings that will be agreed upon during the course.

Assessment methods

The evaluation will focus in particular on the student’s ability to navigate the course materials in order to extract relevant information, illustrate key topics and issues, and meaningfully connect them.

The following aspects will be assessed:

• Mastery of the content;

• Ability to summarize and analyze key topics and concepts;

• Ability to express oneself clearly, using language appropriate to the subject.

Students who demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the topics discussed in class, combined with critical thinking, strong verbal skills, and appropriate use of disciplinary language, will receive top marks.

Students with a more rote-based knowledge of the material, along with a fair ability to synthesize and analyze using generally correct, though not always precise, language, will receive good to satisfactory marks.

Gaps in content knowledge and/or inappropriate language use – even within a context of basic understanding – will result in a passing but low grade.

Examination sessions will be scheduled on a monthly basis, with the exception of the summer break (August).

USE OF AI:
AI may be used as a supportive tool for individual study, including for further exploration of course topics, summarisation, and self-assessment. With regard to assessment, limited, transparent, and non-substantive use of AI is permitted for support activities (e.g. summarisation and rephrasing). The substantive use of AI to complete any part of an assessed task is not permitted.

Teaching tools

Students with learning disorders and\or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Forlin