Archeologia dei Paesaggi in Bassa Romagna: il progetto “Bassa Romandiola"

In this paper we are presenting the preliminary results of an archaeological landscape project started by the University of Bologna in 2009, focusing on the north-western part of the province of Ravenna, an area called Unione dei Comuni della Bassa Romagna. The main aim of the project was to investigate the medieval settlement patterns of a territory which has never been systematically studied before and, possibly, to relate these to the pre-existing ones of the Roman period. For this reason, an artefact survey was conducted on a sample area, selected on the basis of the existing archaeological and geomorpho-logical knowledge. During the first four campaigns, 62 sq. km were investigated, out of a total of 150 of the sample. Thanks to the results that were collected, it is now possible to question the previous hy-potheses, that used to see this territory as “static”, considering both the settlement patterns and the socio-economic structures. Indeed, the survey allowed us to identify rural nucleated settlements from the 9th-10th centuries, and then, a selection of these sites during the 13th century, when many were abandoned in favour of larger villages. This process was due to the intervention of the major powers of the time, like the counts, bishops and communes, who were powerful enough to modify the pre-existing settlement patterns