Micromorphological Study of Concotto Surfaces Protected by the Avellino Eruption in 3945 ± 10 cal. BP at the Early Bronze Age of Afragola Village in Southern Italy

Tiziana Matarazzo, Francesco Berna and Paul Goldberg

Environmental Archaeology, 2017, vol. 22, issue 4, 365-380

Abstract: The term Concotto refers to fragments or patches of hard heated clay that derive from living surfaces, walls, and ovens. Concotto fragments are found throughout the Italian peninsula and date from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Current studies express contradictory opinions about whether or not the Concottos on living surfaces represent intentionally constructed surfaces or the secondary products of the contact between hot embers and sediments. This study uses micromorphological analysis to investigate the function and composition of Concotto surfaces from several domestic structures at the Early Bronze Age village of Afragola in southern Italy. Afragola is an exceptionally preserved agricultural village that was covered by almost 1 m of volcanic ash during the Vesuvius eruption in 3945 ± 10 cal. BP. The Concottos at Afragola are hard, red surfaces that are typically associated with burned materials. Micromorphological analysis reveals that the Concottos were intentionally made by laying down patches of clay and then heating them to create a hard, flat surface. This study explores the potential uses of the Concotto as cooking surfaces during the Early Bronze Age of southern Italy.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14614103.2017.1353658 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:yenvxx:v:22:y:2017:i:4:p:365-380

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/yenv20

DOI: 10.1080/14614103.2017.1353658

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Archaeology is currently edited by Tim Mighall

More articles in Environmental Archaeology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().