The SUCCESSO-TERRA Project: a Lesson of Sustainability from the Terramare Culture, Middle Bronze Age of the Po Plain (Northern Italy)

Abstract

This backstory article deals with the SUCCESSO-TERRA Project (2017–2020), an interdisciplinary research program aiming at reconstructing the land-use transformations that occurred during the development of the Terramare culture in the southern-central Po Plain of Northern Italy. Topics include climate-environment changes, human impact and exploitation of natural resources that are interconnected topics in human ecology and environmental sciences. These topics can only be understood in a long-term perspective integrating archaeology, geology, botany and other sciences. The text includes the theoretical basis, the research strategy and the main methodological approaches given by geoarchaeology and palynology, the two research sides constituting the partnership of the project. Figure 1. The logo and concept of the SUCCESSO-TERRA Project. IANSA 2018 ● IX/2 ● 221–229 Mauro Cremaschi, Anna Maria Mercuri, Alessandra Benatti, Giovanna Bosi, Filippo Brandolini, Eleonora Clò, Assunta Florenzano, Elisa Furia, Guido S. Mariani, Marta Mazzanti, Maria Chiara Montecchi, Eleonora Rattighieri, Rossella Rinaldi, Paola Torri, Andrea Zerboni: The SUCCESSO-TERRA Project: a Lesson of Sustainability from the Terramare Culture, Middle Bronze Age of the Po Plain (Northern Italy) 222 MIUR (Ministry of Italy for University and Research, action 20158KBLNB, P.I.: M. Cremaschi) joins together experts on Geoarchaeology (University of Milan) and Palynology (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) to study highresolution archaeological sediments with an interdisciplinary ecological perspective. SUCCESSO-TERRA points towards the relationships between climate-environment changes, human impact, and exploitation of natural resources – topics that are traditionally interconnected in human ecology (Butzer, 1982). These topics can only be understood given a long-term perspective: integrating archaeology, geology, and biology (mostly consisting of botany and zoology). The concept that archaeological sciences can be a tool to deal with modern societal challenges is at the basis of SUCCESSO-TERRA: an “old but new approach” to compare current issues to those concerning sustainability in the 3rd millennium BP. Archaeological scientific investigations with a long-term perspective have repeatedly suggested a possible nexus between changes in climate (main trends and rapid events) and societal crises during the Holocene (Jalut et al., 2009; Mercuri et al., 2011); the main role played today by the on-going climate change in influencing human adaptation is also evident (Oldfield, 2005; Mercuri et al., 2015a). To establish if climate change influenced the cultural trajectory of the Terramare culture – and if so, then to estimate its true contribution – is the core of the project. The Terramare settlements are exemplar archaeological/ palaeoenvironmental contexts showing the complex dynamic between regional climatic/environmental changes and land use. SUCCESSO-TERRA avoids climatic determinism and maintains a bi-directional perspective in the study of the relationships between climate, environment, and people – considering as it does the environment and civilizations as part of a complex dynamic system (e.g. Stoffle et al., 2003; Mercuri, 2008; Cremaschi, Zerboni 2009; 2011; Mercuri, Sadori, 2012). From one side, climate changes have triggered environmental and cultural adaptations. From the other side, people have continuously, and deeply, shaped the landscape in which they settled. However, a continuing and increasing human exploitation of natural resources creates an imbalance in the system (Diamond, 2005), resulting in possible episodes of population relocation or the collapse of human societies. Within this framework, Bronze Age Mediterranean civilizations have offered us several examples of crises with catastrophic outcomes. Similar dramatic effects have been recorded along the Alpine fringe with the crisis of the pile-dwelling communities (Magny et al., 2011). All these episodes led to significant changes in the structure of the involved civilization that, experiencing as they were the first steps of urban culture at that time, had an unsustainable impact on the environment. Interdisciplinary research is mandatory if we want to understand the adaptive strategies of civilizations at different times and within a long-term perspective (Mercuri and Florenzano, 2019). The Terramare case study refers to the changing environment during the Middle and Recent Bronze Ages (ca. 1550–1170 years BC; Bernabò Brea et al., 1997; Mercuri et al., 2006a), at the Middle to Late Holocene transition, and at the border between continental and Mediterranean Italy. 2. The Terramare narrative based on archaeological and scientific evidence The term Terramare indicates the banked and moated villages of the Bronze Age, located in the alluvial plain of the Po River of Northern Italy, mostly in present-day Emilia Romagna (Pearce, 1998; Bernabò Brea, Cremaschi, 2009; Cremaschi, 2013). The Terramare culture flourished in the central part of the Po Plain during a period spanning the 16th to the 12th century BC. The Terramare economy was based upon farming, herding, and metallurgy (Bernabò Brea et al., 1997); moreover, Terramare settlements relied on having a well-developed management of water and wood resources. The people settled in an open environment that hosted scattered woodland and plentiful water resources. The Terramare people promoted networks of commercial exchange between northern Europe and the Mediterranean region. This civilization lasted for approximately 500 years, before suddenly collapsing around 1150 BC (Cardarelli, 2009). Extensive excavations and geophysical surveying disclosed the complexity of their settlements and the interconnections between residential areas, defensive structures, fields and the natural hydrography. Agriculture in fields was supplied with irrigated water, and an innovative and sophisticated management system of the natural hydrographic network was developed (Cremaschi, 2009). Large artificial canals were excavated to draw water from rivers to the moats surrounding villages; then, water was redistributed to the fields through a dense network of irrigation ditches (Cremaschi, Pizzi, 2007; 2011; Cremaschi, 2018). The irrigation strategy and competent agriculture triggered this skilled civilization to its apogee with a demographic increase from the Middle to the Recent Bronze Age. Mesophilous woods (oaks and hornbeams) gave a major supply of natural raw material for building, fuel, and food (Cardarelli, 2009; Cremaschi, 2010; Mercuri et al., 2006a; 2015b). Pollen diagrams show low forest cover close to sites with a significant presence of wet environments and a set of anthropogenic habitats testified by pollen indicators of crops and synanthropics (API, as described by Behre, 1981; Mercuri et al., 2013). According to the palynological record, the agricultural economy was based on forest management including coppicing, fruit collection in the wild, and crop fields. The fields included different types of cereals (Ravazzi et al., 1992; 2004; Mercuri et al., 2015b; Cremaschi et al., 2016) with evidence of intercropping with legumes (Mercuri et al., 2006a; 2006b). Moreover, most of the open landscapes around the villages were used for pastures as suggested IANSA 2018 ● IX/2 ● 221–229 Mauro Cremaschi, Anna Maria Mercuri, Alessandra Benatti, Giovanna Bosi, Filippo Brandolini, Eleonora Clò, Assunta Florenzano, Elisa Furia, Guido S. Mariani, Marta Mazzanti, Maria Chiara Montecchi, Eleonora Rattighieri, Rossella Rinaldi, Paola Torri, Andrea Zerboni: The SUCCESSO-TERRA Project: a Lesson of Sustainability from the Terramare Culture, Middle Bronze Age of the Po Plain (Northern Italy) 223 mainly by Cichorieae and other pasture pollen indicators (Ravazzi et al., 2004; Mercuri et al., 2006b; 2015b; Cremaschi et al., 2016). These land-use types have also been confirmed by the recovery of well-preserved macrobotanical remains in most of the studied contexts (Rottoli, Motella, 2004; Rottoli, Castiglioni, 2009). The intensification of the food demand probably caused cereal production to be inadequate for such a high number of people. Environmental stresses became ever more evident and wood resources were renewing slowly. For instance, the last phases of the pollen diagram from the Terramara di Montale show a decrease of woodland together with a reduction in cereal fields suggesting that soil and wood overexploitation might have been among the actual causes of the Terramare’s crisis (Mercuri et al., 2006b). At the top of the sequence of Santa Rosa di Poviglio, in correspondence with the drying of the moat system, a similar dramatic decrease of woods suggests that there may have been a twofold causation in the societal crisis affecting the Terramare culture: the increased aridity (a natural factor) and the overgrazing of natural resources (an anthropogenic factor) might have played a fairly synchronous action on the landscape (Cremaschi et al., 2016). The societal collapse of the Terramare culture is dated at ca. 1150 years BC; settlements in the central Po Plain were abandoned and Final Bronze Age settlements survived only in the northern sector of the Po Plain and in the Northern Apennines. 3. Research strategy 3.1 Key archaeological sites The SUCCESSO-TERRA Project analyses data from three Bronze Age sites (Figure 2): (i) the Terramara Santa Rosa di Poviglio (Bernabò Brea, Cremaschi, 2004) (Figures 3–5) and (ii) the Vasca di Noceto site (Bernabò Brea, Cremaschi, 2009) (Figures 3, 6–8) are in the Po Plain; while (iii) the San Michele di Valestra (Cremaschi, 1997) site is a coeval settlement in the Apennines (Figures 3, 9–10). The first and second sites are well-known archaeological sites belonging to the Po Plain Terramare culture, whose excavations have been on-going for many years. The latter – San Michele di Valestra – is a Bronze Age site, located outside the Ter