Before the ricefields: surveying the past
Director: M.E. Gorrini
Area: Western Vercellae area, Piedmont, NW Italy
Timespan: Roman (1st BCE-4th CE) and Middle Ages (5th CE-12th CE)
Methodologies: walking survey, study of materials, geophysical investigations, archive research, aerial photographs, paleobotanical analyses, coring.
In 2001, construction works on the new Milan-Turin TAV railway unearthed a necropolis 1.5 km north of the modern settlement of Livorno Ferraris in Piedmont, located 30 km west of Vercelli. The necropolis, which has not been completely excavated yet, consists of 212 tombs of different typology with an important amount of grave goods that date between the first and the fourth century AD.
It is in the context of this discovery that the University of Pavia launched the landscape archaeological project Before the ricefields in October 2016, within a protocol of agreement with the Livorno Ferraris Municipality and the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le Province di Novara, Vercelli, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and with the involvement of students from a local high school.
The initial aim of this project, which was to identify the settlement or the settlements related to the necropolis, was expanded to include a diachronic study and possible reconstruction of the ancient landscape of the western Vercellae territory from the Iron Age II period to the Middle Ages (fourth century BC- to fourteenth century AD). The area of investigation was thus extended beyond the area of the necropolis in order to allow us to understand large-scale historical phenomena such as population dynamics, settlement strategies, the infrastructural network, and the evolution of the natural landscape as well as human-nature relationships through time.
In 2025 will be surveying new areas and finished others already partially investigated in the past. The activities will take place between February and March, in two shifts of one week each. For each shift will be involved five or six students, who will participate in field walking activities and in cataloguing, drawing and studying the collected finds. The mission will provide for food and accommodation, but the onward and return journeys will be paid by the participants.
