Punta di Zambrone is a Bronze Age harbour site on the western coast of Calabria in southern Italy, excavated by a joint Italian-Austrian team. It was founded at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE and abandoned around 1200 BCE. Especially in the early Recent Bronze Age during the 13th century BCE, its community, which was economically connected to other settlements in its hinterland, maintained relationships with remote regions in Italy, continental Greece and Crete.

This excavation and research project is a cooperation between Reinhard Jung and Marco Pacciarelli (Università Federico II di Napoli, Italy) as main partners. R. Jung and M. Pacciarelli are both directors of excavation and conduct two independently funded projects in Austria and Italy.

The settlement site Punta di Zambrone was inhabited during different phases of the Bronze Age in the second millennium BCE. Its most distinctive features are the numerous artefacts of Aegean type (ceramics, earthenware, metal and ivory objects) uncovered in three excavation campaigns from 2011 to 2013 and supplemented by several campaigns of finds processing and analysis.

 

 

The five main objectives of the research project are

  1. Description of the spatial organisation and reconstruction of the natural environment surrounding a coastal settlement (Punta di Zambrone) as a case study, based on results of geological studies, geophysical prospection and selective excavations.
  2. Reconstruction of the development of the local Bronze Age culture groups in Tyrrhenian Calabria and their contacts to neighbouring groups (on the mainland, on the Aeolian Islands and on Sicily) and the establishment of an accurate relative and absolute chronology (by historical-archaeological analysis and radiometric data).
  3. Reconstruction of the Bronze Age economy of the excavated settlement: agriculture, hunting and animal husbandry based on archaeobotany and archaeozoology, organic chemistry, and isotopic analyses of zoological remains; crafts and trade based on the functional analysis of artefacts as well as chemical and
  4. Definition of the function of the excavated settlement in the local settlement system.
  5. Reconstruction of the role of coastal areas in the south-west of Italy in Mediterranean networks of economic and political connections during the Bronze Age.

These issues are discussed in a number of interdisciplinary research collaborations with scientists from Austria, Italy and Germany.
The main funding of the Austrian project was part of a three-year stand-alone project grant from the FWF (P23619-G19). It was based at the University of Salzburg (Department of Classical Studies) from June 1st 2011 to July 31st 2013, and continued at the former OREA from August 1st 2013 to November 30th 2015. A separate part of the project on mobility of humans and animals was funded in 2013 by the Gerda Henkel Foundation (project director R. Jung). The Italian part of the project was financed in the framework of a PRIN (Progetto di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale – Ministry of Education and Science) and by the Università Federico II (project director M. Pacciarelli).

Principal investigator

Co-Director,
Main Cooperation Partner

Marco Pacciarelli (Università di Napoli Federico II)

Cooperations

  • Emilia Allevato (Università di Napoli Federico II)
  • Jan Cemper-Kiesslich (Universität Salzburg)
  • Sonia Conte (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
  • Gerhard Forstenpointner (Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien)
  • Pamela Fragnoli (Modena)
  • Fabian Kanz (Medizinische Universität Wien)
  • Marlies Klee (Freiburg)
  • Mathias Mehofer (Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science – VIAS)
  • Hans Mommsen (Universität Bonn)
  • Alistair Pike (University of Southampton)
  • Ernst Pernicka (Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie Mannheim)
  • Leopold Puchinger (Technische Universität Wien)
  • Paola Romano (Università di Napoli Federico II)
  • Fabio Scarciglia (Università della Calabria)
  • Gerald Weissengruber (Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien)
  • Bernhard Weninger (Universität Köln)
  • Ursula Thanheiser (Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science – VIAS)
  • Barbara Zach (Bernbeuren)

Duration

06/2011–11/2015

Funding