Pottery and ancient landscape: provenance analysis of Battifratta Cave materials

The relationship between nature and humans in the past is closely linked and complex. The reconstruction of the ancient landscape is essential to understanding human behaviour as the environment has always played a key role in shaping human choices. Integrated approaches to analysing the material culture can reveal further information to understand past environmental change and human choices. In recent years, archaeology has employed interdisciplinary methodologies following geoarchaeological approaches. These approaches significantly enhance the potential of research focused on reconstructing the landscape and the natural resources exploited. In this framework, characterisation analyses can reveal the origin of raw materials and technology. Studies on pottery and clay are strategic as they connect the ancient landscape to raw material sources, production areas and archaeological sites. A good example is Battifratta Cave, a prehistoric site of the Sabina region (northern Latium, Italy) containing Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery. Petrographic analyses in thin sections and FTIR analyses have been performed on archaeological and geological samples to detect the clay sources exploited during the Neolithic. Our ultimate goal is to understand the provenance of the clay used for ceramic production and to discuss prehistoric mobility in the Sabina region.