For a definition of latest phase of Recent Bronze Age at Moscosi di Cingoli: chronological and/or cultural distinction?

Abstract

This paper focusses on a particular aspect that emerges in the advanced phase of the Recent Bronze Age, namely the sometimes sudden and remarkable appearance of Terramare elements in pottery finds at some sites outside the Terramare area. Although in apparent continuity with the previous period, these finds point to a significant change in pottery production (in terms of type and decorative motives), suggesting changes in the socio-economic order and perhaps in the “ethnic” make-up of some communities. This is particularly evident in a number of settlements, some geographically distant from each another, namely in the Veneto, Tuscany, Romagna, the Marche, Campania, Puglia and Calabria, as already mentioned by Andrea Cardarelli in particular and other authors. These sites share a number of features regarding production materials, but we do not know whether this is an indication of the same cultural and/or ethnic identity. The main aim of this article is to analyse the development process of the Recent Bronze Age in Italy, obtaining a more precise definition of the period’s latter part, which marks the direct transition to the Final Bronze Age in the mid-12th century BC. This case study makes part of a wider debate on how to describe this similarity in material culture. We discuss how the relation with “typical” identities (material and ideological) of entities in specific geographical areas during the process of historical evolution between the Recent Bronze Age (RBA) and Final Bronze Age (FBA) can be described as “phase” or “chronological horizon” rather than in terms like culture or facies. Moscosi di Cingoli, subjected to systematic surveys but only partly published, is an emblematic site in understanding this period. Within the detailed stratigraphic sequence stretching from the Middle Bronze Age 3 (MB3) and continuing through the Recent Bronze Age (RBA), new elements appear at Moscosi that relate to the last occupation of this site. A number of significant elements found here suggest that this period may be a sub-stage of the RBA2, to be divided into RBA2a and RBA2b, or a new stage BR3, on the basis of a more detailed stratigraphic analysis of the materials. Already during the excavation at Moscosi and during the preliminary analysis of the materials, it was particularly evident that new types and new syntaxes were coming to light in the upper stratigraphic units, with innovative elements appearing in the stratigraphic sequence of the RBA2. These seem to be useful indicators of the final stage of the Recent Bronze Age, transitioning into the Final Bronze Age (in particular the Miradolo variety B dagger, the raised twisted handles, the carinated cups with shallow bellies and shoulders decorated with oblique or vertical grooves, the bowls with inward sloping rims decorated with horizontal grooves, and the bowl with an oblique lip decorated with zig-zag grooves).