Archeologia funeraria e mobilità nella media valle del Tevere: la necropoli tardoromana e altomedievale di Castel Sozzio (Viterbo)

The necropolis of Castel Sozzio (Civitella D’Agliano, Viterbo) is located to the south of the confluence of the river Paglia into the Tiber, on the slopes of the hills facing the Tiber to the west. In Antiquity, as it is well known, the courses of the two rivers were strictly interconnected as part of a wider road network. The results of the ongoing excavations in the necropolis provide information on settlement transformations and mobility in the crucial period between the late 5 th and the 7 th century AD. The necropolis was connected to a rural settlement grown on a Roman villa or vicus and revealed, at present, approximately 70 graves (chest tombs, cappuccina, and pit graves). The very rare grave goods do not point to a specific ethnic identity, but preliminary information deriving from isotopic analysis reveals the presence of a significant number of ‘foreigners’. Thus, this funerary context is a privileged site for the study of mobility and integration between different cultural and political entities in a crucial geographic context.