Late Post-Medieval Rural Landscapes in Southern Calabria

Hamish Forbes

A range of "recent" (mostly 19th-20th Century) structures are a recurrent feature of many Mediterranean rural landscapes. However, despite their relatively recent construction (archaeologically speaking), they are often not datable except in the most general of terms: architectural and masonry styles are undiagnostic and associated artefacts generally minimal. In addition, generations of scholars have emphasised that Mediterranean settlement patterns are strongly nucleated. The substantial numbers of isolated rural structures to be found in numerous Mediterranean landscapes have therefore generally been considered either as "aberrant" or else as "temporary shelters", thus having little significance for understanding settlement patterns.

The combination of their relative modernity and lack of precise dating probably accounts for the lack of archaeological interest in such structures. Ethnoarchaeological studies are some of the few ways in which structures of this type have been studied. Many highlight abandonment and/or site formation processes: these tend to treat them as belonging to a single period, called "recent".

Substantial sectors of the Bova Marina area of southern Calabria (Italy) have dense scatters of isolated rural structures, predominantly farmhouses, many now abandoned. In some areas they probably exceed 30 per km². They occur in conjunction with a major nucleated settlement, Bova Superiore, which has been continuously occupied from the early medieval period. In addition, the town of Bova Marina has developed rapidly since its appearance at the end of the late nineteenth century associated with the coming of the railway. The existence of bread ovens at most of the isolated structures so far investigated, indicates habitation for much, if not all of the year.

The Late Post-medieval Rural Landscapes in Southern Calabria project was initiated in the summer of 2005, in conjunction with the Bova Marina Archaeological Project (BMAP), run by the Universities of Cambridge and Leicester. Further field seasons have been conducted in 2006 and 2007. Part of the aim of the project is to integrate research on rural landscapes with those of other members of the project, especially Paula Lazrus (St. John's College, Staten Island, New York - historical rural land use) and Gianna Ayala (Sheffield University - landscape formation processes).

It is evident, even in the relatively preliminary stages of this project, that rural house sites have frequently had complex histories. Far from being "single-period" sites, many have been extended, rebuilt, modified, and "modernised", then later re-used as animal shelters or rural storage structures. Vestiges of earlier structures on some sites also indicate a greater time-depth than the term "recent" pre-supposes.

Three main strands are currently being pursued in the field research:

• The long-term significance of rural structures for local populations, as demonstrated by their contribution as continuing foci both for the accumulation of new artefact materials and the provision of artefacts (especially building materials) for re-use elsewhere.

• Concepts of abandonment. This is currently being primarily researched by Alex Lerwill, a Masters student in Archaeology at Nottingham University. The research extends beyond a narrow focus on the site to a consideration of the interdependency between the site itself and the surrounding productive landscape when investigating the meanings and results of various forms of abandonment and non-abandonment.

• The material expression of the impact of decades of varied Italian government programmes designed to address deep-seated rural poverty in the south of the country.

In my own research I am presently concentrating on the ways in which buildings in the Bova area - even apparently completely abandoned ones - act as foci for attracting and incorporating artefact materials. Continued deposition of rubbish which clearly post-dates the abandonment and disintegration of the structure indicates the way in which these structures continue to attract human activities. Other artefacts are built into the masonry itself. Bricks are regularly used to surround window and door embrasures and less often in other places in rubble masonry walls. In addition, fragments of broken tile are a significant component in the masonry of many structures.

Although the research is ongoing, it seems likely that broken tile fragments were transported across landscapes specifically to incorporate into structures. The transportation of such artefact building materials must be understood in the context of what is plainly a long-established tradition of "mining" abandoned buildings for such artefacts, especially bricks, for transportation across the landscape for re-use in new buildings elsewhere. While there is considerable interest in the use of Roman building materials as spolia in medieval structures, there is as yet little research on such activities in more recent periods.