Past, Present, Future: An Overview of Roman Malta

Roman Malta has been the subject of numerous historical and archaeological studies since the seventeenth century. However, the lack of documented excavations and the restricted number of sites – particularly those within the boundaries of the two main Roman towns – meant that numerous grey areas persist in our understanding of the islands under Roman rule, regardless of how many studies have been done so far. This article attempts to provide an overview of past works, studies and a discussion of the known consensus on knowledge of sites, populations and economies. This in an attempt to provide a clear picture of what we know (and what we do not) about Roman Malta. Finally, I will comment on current and new research and projects which are being carried out by various local entities and foreign institutions to enhance our knowledge of this very important historic era for the Maltese islands. This culminates into a proposal for the use of a predictive model that may help us identify new sites and, consequently, provide new data on this phase.

Melite Civitas Romana in 3D: Virtualization Project of the Archaeological Park and Museum of the Domus Romana of Rabat, Malta

The archaeological site of the Domus Romana in Rabat, Malta was excavated almost 100 years ago yielding artefacts from the various phases of the site. The Melite Civitas Romana project was designed to investigate the domus, which may have been the home of a Roman Senator, and its many phases of use. Pending planned archaeological excavations designed to investigate the various phases of the site, a team from the Institute for Digital Exploration from the University of South Florida carried out a digitization campaign in the summer of 2019 using terrestrial laser scanning and aerial digital photogrammetry to document the current state of the site to provide a baseline of documentation and plan the coming excavations. In parallel, structured light scanning and photogrammetry were used to digitize 128 artefacts in the museum of the Domus Romana to aid in off-site research and create a virtual museum platform for global dissemination.

Heritage Artefacts in the COVID-19 Era: The Aura and Authenticity of 3D Models

Museums have been increasingly investing in their digital presence. This became more pressing during the COVID-19 pandemic since heritage institutions had, on the one hand, to temporarily close their doors to visitors while, on the other, find ways to communicate their collections to the public. Virtual tours, revamped websites, and 3D models of cultural artefacts were only a few of the means that museums devised to create alternative ways of digital engagement and counteract the physical and social distancing measures. Although 3D models and collections provide novel ways to interact, visualise, and comprehend the materiality and sensoriality of physical objects, their mediation in digital forms misses essential elements that contribute to (virtual) visitor/user experience. This article explores three-dimensional digitisations of museum artefacts, particularly problematising their aura and authenticity in comparison to their physical counterparts. Building on several studies that have problematised these two concepts, this article establishes an exploratory framework aimed at evaluating the experience of aura and authenticity in 3D digitisations. This exploration allowed us to conclude that even though some aspects of aura and authenticity are intrinsically related to the physicality and materiality of the original, 3D models can still manifest aura and authenticity, as long as a series of parameters, including multimodal contextualisation, interactivity, and affective experiences are facilitated.

Virtual Archaeology of Death and Burial: A Procedure for Integrating 3D Visualization and Analysis in Archaeothanatology

The reconstruction of past mortuary rituals and practices increasingly incorporates analysis of the taphonomic history of the grave and buried body, using the framework provided by archaeothanatology. Archaeothanatological analysis relies on interpretation of the three-dimensional (3D) relationship of bones within the grave and traditionally depends on elaborate written descriptions and two-dimensional (2D) images of the remains during excavation to capture this spatial information. With the rapid development of inexpensive 3D tools, digital replicas (3D models) are now commonly available to preserve 3D information on human burials during excavation. A procedure developed using a test case to enhance archaeothanatological analysis and improve post-excavation analysis of human burials is described. Beyond preservation of static spatial information, 3D visualization techniques can be used in archaeothanatology to reconstruct the spatial displacement of bones over time, from deposition of the body to excavation of the skeletonized remains. The purpose of the procedure is to produce 3D simulations to visualize and test archaeothanatological hypotheses, thereby augmenting traditional archaeothanatological analysis. We illustrate our approach with the reconstruction of mortuary practices and burial taphonomy of a Bell Beaker burial from the site of Oostwoud-Tuithoorn, West-Frisia, the Netherlands. This case study was selected as the test case because of its relatively complete context information. The test case shows the potential for application of the procedure to older 2D field documentation, even when the amount and detail of documentation is less than ideal.

Ceramic Traditions in the Forest-Steppe Zone of Eastern Europe

Early pottery on the territory from the Eastern Caspian Sea and Aral Sea to Denmark reveals a certain typological similarity. It is represented by egg-shaped vessels with an S-shaped profile of the upper part and a pointed bottom. The vessels are not ornamented or decorated with incised lines, organized often in a net. This type of pottery was spread within hunter-gatherer ancient groups. The forest-steppe Volga region is one of the earliest centers of pottery production in Eastern Europe. The first pottery is recorded here in the last quarter of the seventh millennium BC. Its appearance is associated with the bearers of the Elshanskaya cultural tradition. The most likely source of its formation is the territory of Central Asia. Later, due to aridization, these ceramic traditions distributed further westward to the forest-steppe Don region. During the first half of the sixth millennium BC, groups associated with the bearers of the Elshanskaya cultural tradition moved westward. Significant similarities with the ceramic complexes of the Elshanskaya culture are found in materials from a number of early pottery cultures of Central Europe and the Baltic (Narva, Neman, and Ertebølle).

Obsidian from the Neolithic Layers of “Grotta di San Michele Arcangelo di Saracena” (Cosenza), Italy. A Preliminary Report

The paper presents the results obtained by techno-typological analysis of a lithic assemblage from the Neolithic layers of Grotta San Michele Arcangelo di Saracena (Cosenza) together with the results of micro-wear analysis obtained from a preliminary selection of obsidian artifacts with different provenances distinguished by pXRF analysis. The site provides one of the best preserved Neolithic sequences in the area, from the earliest Impressed Wares (or Impresse Arcaiche) (early sixth millennium BC) to the Spatarella pottery style (end fifth – early fourth millennium BC). Along the Neolithic sequence, it is possible to observe some major changes within lithic resources management. In particular, it is possible to notice some techno-typological breakages between the Early Neolithic and the further stages, until the second phase of the Late Neolithic, when another rupture, corresponding to the Spatarella facies, is evident.

The First Neolithic Occupation of La Cova del Randero (Pedreguer, Alicante, Spain)

The excavations at “Cova del Randero” (Pedreguer, Alicante, Spain) began in 2007 within the programme of archaeological interventions of the Archaeological Museum of Alicante. The cavity, located in one of the valleys that connect the coast with the inland mountains, presents a wide sequence of occupations that begins in the Upper Palaeolithic and continues throughout the different phases of the Neolithic. The results of a multidisciplinary study, carried out in an archaeological context associated with the first Neolithic presence of the cavity, are presented here. This occupation is defined by a unique combustion structure to which a set of artefacts and biofacts are linked. This archaeological context, probably of a specific nature, is related to the first agro-pastoral communities settled in the area. The fireplace is well defined stratigraphically and sedimentologically because of its reddish soil, which corresponds to hunter-gatherer occupation levels of the cavity, and under the greyish sediments that characterise the use of the cave as a fold during the Middle Neolithic. This occupation event was dated both by the associated materials, among which a fragment of cardial ceramic was found, and by radiocarbon dating of a metacarpus of Ovis aries around 5075–4910 cal BC (epicardial Early Neolithic). This data allows us to link the occupation of the cavity at this time with pastoral activity in a medium mountain environment. However, it also allows us to infer the environmental characteristics in which the first farming communities of the mountains of Alicante were developed.

The Phenomena La Hoguette and Limburg – Technological Aspects

La Hoguette and Limburg pottery and the role their producers played in the Neolithization of western Central Europe are still a matter of debate. These styles exist in parallel to Linearbandkeramik (LBK) but are different from LBK pottery and here called Non-LBK wares. The various Non-LBK styles are mainly defined based on decoration, but this does not coincide with important technological features. Therefore, an technological approach including the parameters of temper, vessel morphology, and firing methods was used for an alternative classification and to trace knowledge transmission networks. It is suggested that several technologically distinguishable Non-LBK pottery traditions of different geographical origins existed contemporaneously in western Central Europe. While the early mineral- and organic-tempered ware shows some similarities with the Earliest and Early LBK, the widespread early bone-tempered pottery with its uniform design cannot be traced back to either Cardial or LBK pottery. This is probably the oldest pottery in western Central Europe. This means that here pottery emerged first as a tradition outside both the LBK and Cardial cultures. Increasing interaction between producers of various Non-LBK wares and LBK pottery makers can then be traced over several centuries. All styles are shown to be diverse and dynamic and to be undergoing substantial internal development. The persistent mutual influencing is a key for understanding the development of Non-LBK pottery, as well as for innovations within LBK ceramic production. Here, a hypothesis is proposed that the makers of Non-LBK wares may be hunter-gatherers, although this cannot currently be proven.

Keeping the Frontier: Steps “Towards Neolithization” in the Eastern Gulf of Finland

This article is an attempt to understand the driving forces behind the process of Neolithization in the Eastern Europe Forest zone, where the consumption economy existed till the Bronze or even till the Early Iron Age. Main peculiarities of the sociocultural development in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland region (EGF) on the transition from Mesolithic to farming societies (sixth – first ka. BC) are discussed in relation to the changes in material culture, subsistence strategy, communication system and settlement pattern. The process of neolithization lasted there for several thousand years. Overview of the dynamics of the social and cultural development in the region revealed several phases of substantial changes in archeological materials (presumably reflecting considerable sociocultural changes). These changes happened later than in the neighboring territories and were preceded by dramatic environmental transformations that affected prehistoric communities in the coastal zone. For the population of the region, innovations could be considered as not “steps toward,” but “retreat in the face of” neolithization. Resistance of the population of EGF to the innovations could be based on environmental conditions that were extremely favorable for hunter–gatherers’ subsistence, but made farming (especially early farming) rather risky.

Sign-Objects Among Neolithic Faunal Remains, Visible Symbols

The purpose of this article is to present an inventory of certain faunal remains from Linearbandkeramic (LBK) settlements in the Paris Basin (Ile-de-France, Hauts-de-France and Champagne) that seem to belong to a particular category, that of “sign-objects,” in other words, tangible evidence intended to be shown and directly interpretable by an observer belonging to the society which produced them. Based on three categories of archaeological contexts, a ceremonial enclosure, settlements and graves, we will attempt to highlight the species that were important to Neolithic society. Two of them, the domestic cattle and the aurochs, are particularly involved in the deposits through the exhibition of their bones or their horn cores. Sheep and roe deer are also involved through, for example, transformed bones such as perforated tibias or sharpened roe deer antlers. The results of the analysis were integrated into an archaeological model previously developed to approach the social structure of the Neolithic society.