Geoarchaeological Investigation at Pantanello: Depositional and Postdepositional Processes in the Formation of the Archaeological Record

In 2013, three stratigraphic trenches were dug at the margin of the Pantanello Sanctuary, the Roman Ceramic Production Center, and in the surrounding plain. These test trenches (Fig. 14.1) were opened to check for archaeological vestiges related to the phases of occupation at Pantanello's main site and to collect samples for palaeoenvironmental and geoarchaeological analyses. An earlier geoarchaeological investigation was carried out in the early 1990s to reconstruct the environmental evolution of the area of Metaponto and to understand its relationship with the distribution of archaeological sites (see Ch. 13, "Geoarchaeological Observations at the Pantanello Sanctuary"). This report instead concerns the study of some stratigraphic sequences in the site of Pantanello, aiming chiefly to clarify depositional and taphonomic processes. From each sequence exposed in the Lower Sanctuary at Pantanello,2 a series of samples were collected Samples for pollen (see Ch 17, "Pollen Evidence and the Reconstruction of the Plant Landscape of the Pantanello Area from the 7th to the 1st Century BC") and sedimentological analyses were gathered along a vertical axis from the exposed stratigraphic sequences, while samples of botanical macroremains and thin sections of undisturbed and oriented blocks for micromorphological analysis were extracted in correspondence with the main stratigraphic units. The chosen approach combined geoarchaeological investigation of sedimentary and post-sedimentary processes related to the formation of the archaeological record with pollen-based reconstruction of the landscape changes. This method is the most powerful for interpreting natural and anthropic contributions to sedimentation, in addition to distinguishing between environmental- and human-induced depositional and post-depositional processes.