Environment and Agricultural Practices in Late Bronze Age Central Italy: the case of Monte Croce Guardia (Ancona, Marche Region, Italy).

The Bronze Age represents a period of important cultural changes occuring in all the Mediterranean during climatic fluctuations, which may have reflected in palaeoenviromental and land use changes. Monte Croce Guardia, one of the main Italian LBA settlements (12th-10th cent. BCE), excavated in the Pre-Apennines by the Dept. of Science of Antiquities, Sapienza University of Rome, provides a valuable case study to investigate landscape transformations under climatic and/or human forcing. We identified plant micro- and macroremains from primary activity areas covering the entire occupational sequence. We applied archaeobotanical, palynological and stable isotope analyses to reconstruct the plant exploitation and the climatic and environmental conditions through times. Among seeds and fruits the high abundance of millet suggests the importance of this new drought-tolerant cereal, spread in Italy from the East since the MBA. Charcoal and pollen data show a significant presence of sclerophytic vegetation, as well as of xerophytic shrubs, suggesting different climatic conditions in the past. Stable carbon isotope data from both deciduous and evergreen oaks charcoals aid in reconstructing the local precipitation patterns, while cereal grains isotopic values reveal the climate influence on agronomic practices. This integrated archaeobotanical approach provides new insights into the environmental, climatic and socio-economic changes in Central Italy at the end of the Bronze Age.