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XIII/2/2022
INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA
NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
homepage: http://www.iansa.eu
Petro-Archaeometric Study of Pre-Roman Pottery from the Archaeological
Site of Bec Berciassa (Roccavione, Cuneo, North-West Italy):
Technological Remarks from Petrographic Study of Tempers
Maria Pia Riccardi
1,2*
, Deneb Cesana
3
, Maya Musa
1
, Sergio Martini
4
, Francesco Zucca
1
1
DSTA – Università degli Studi di Pavia, via A. Ferrata 9, I27100, Pavia, Italy
2
Laboratorio Arvedi, sede di Pavia, via A. Ferrata 9, I27100, Pavia, Italy
3
Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di Alessandria, Asti e Cuneo, Cittadella – via Pavia snc, I15121, Alessandra, Italy
4
Fondazione “La Pietra Lesa”, via Olmazzo 42, I27040, Mornico Losana, Italy
1. Introduction
The Bec Berciassa archaeological site is the most important
protohistoric settlement in the Maritime Alps, Cuneo district.
It is situated at the confuence of the Gesso and Vermenagna
rivers, at 692 metres asl (Figure 1), overlooking the
surrounding valleys and lying along transalpine routes that
have been used since the late prehistoric period. Before the
region was Romanised in the 2
nd
century BC, this hill had
long been occupied by the ancient Ligurian tribes from the
Late Bronze Age 1550–1200 BC.
The discovery of the archaeological site dates back to 1931,
when Rittatore Vonwiller identifed and excavated the traces
of a “prehistoric village” (Rittatore Vonwiller, 1952). The
relevance of the archaeological site for the reconstruction
of the history of the territory and its valorisation has been
supported by the studies carried out in following years by
the Soprintendenza Archeologica del Piemonte (Ferrero,
and Venturino Gambari, 2008) and the very recent survey
and excavation campaigns (2017–2019) promoted by the
Municipality of Roccavione (Cuneo) (Cesana
et al.
, 2018;
Rocchietti and Cesana, 2018, Cesana and Padovan, 2019).
The study of the pottery individuates an older phase
dating back to the Late Bronze Age represented by a small
sample of ceramics. At the same time, the chronology of
most of this material is homogeneously ascribable to
a period between the 6
th
and the beginning of the 4
th
century
BC (Iron Age).
Volume XIII ● Issue 2/2022 ● Pages 155–162
*Corresponding author. E-mail: mariapia.riccardi@unipv.it
ARTICLE INFO
Article history:
Received: 21
st
March 2022
Accepted: 8
th
August 2022
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24916/iansa.2022.2.5
Key words:
ceramics
Pre-roman production
northern Italy
raw materials
production technology
petrography
ABSTRACT
The petro-archaeometric study of ceramics from the Rittatore excavations, Bec Berciassa archaeological
site, was carried out on pottery sherds attributed to an older phase dating back to the Late Bronze Age.
This collection represents a small sampling of pottery and the chronology of most of this material is
homogeneously ascribable to a period between the 6
th
and the beginning of the 4
th
century BC (Iron
Age). In addition to the archaeometric study, a geological survey highlighted the resources of the area
potentially useful for the development of prehistoric communities, including resources that could be
used for ceramic production.
A thin section study under optical microscope distinguished fve ceramic mixtures. They are mostly
coarse-grained, hiatal, and serial-textured, calibrated with the addition of fllers. The fne matrix is
homogeneous in composition, although with compositional variations in Fe
2
O
3
. Therefore, it is
possible to hypothesise a single source of supply. The diferent types of fller can be traced back to
minerals and rocks found outcropping within the basins of the Gesso and Vermenagna rivers and thus
potentially present as pebbles in their beds. Calc-schists, sparitic calcite, magmatic rocks (granites and
aplites), and sericite-schists have been used since the Bronze Age; quartz sandstones and quartzites
are only present in Iron Age pottery. At a macroscopic level, all these fller agents are light in colour,
tending to white, almost as if the colour and homogeneity of the geological material were a criterion
of choice dictated more by tradition and know-how rather than by any particular technological choice.
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IANSA 2022 ● XIII/2 ● 155–162
Maria Pia Riccardi, Deneb Cesana, Maya Musa, Sergio Martini, Francesco Zucca: Petro-Archaeometric Study of Pre-Roman Pottery from the Archaeological Site of
Bec Berciassa (Roccavione, Cuneo, North-West Italy): Technological Remarks from Petrographic Study of Tempers
156
Excavations conducted in 2018 and 2019 unearthed a large
number of pottery pieces, nearly 300, but this preliminary
study focused mainly on historical fnds from the Rittatore
excavations. The ceramic bodies themselves contain
signifcant information about the production technology used
to make them (Maggetti, 1982; Maggetti, 1994; Freestone,
1995; Quinn, 2013; Montana, 2020). Their detailed study,
through a petrographic approach, allows the collection of
information concerning the technology followed for the
realisation of the mixtures: the raw materials that were used
for their production, and where these raw materials were
collected.
In this study, the petrography of the ceramics was
conducted by focusing on the textures of the mixtures and
aiming the petrographic reading toward the coarsest parts of
the mixture,
i.e.
, both the mono- and polymineralic grains.
Quantity, shape, rounding, sorting, and state of conservation
of the grains are textural parameters that, when interpreted
together with the petrography of the grains, allow us to
reconstruct many steps related to the production chain
(Eramo, 2020; Gualtieri, 2020).
To better understand the manufacturing, we have made
a survey of geological materials potentially useful for
the production of ceramics. In the area of interest for the
archaeological site, there is a geological formation known as
“Calc-schists with Green Stones” (or “Calc-schist Complex”
Unit), a unit outcropping that extends over the lower slopes
of the Vermenagna, Stura and Grana Valleys (Montaldo
Calc-schists) and overlaps with that known as Brianzonese
Unit (Ormea Unit). The diferent rocks mentioned condition
strongly and diferently the hydrography, which therefore
difers locally based on the lithotypes encountered by the
water and their location: the hydrographic network has its
maximum development in the outcropping area of schists
(non-porous); correspondingly in the calcareous lithologies
(porous), however, the hydrology reduces above 750 m,
where these lithotypes dominate, and infltration and
an underground circulation prevail, as the surface hydrography
almost disappears. All of this has certainly conditioned the
anthropisation of the site and not only related to the general
conditions of habitability, but especially concerning the
availability of water and the exploitation of raw materials.
The survey and sampling of geological materials are the basis
for establishing technical choices for ceramic production.
Two main archaeological questions drove the goals of this
paper: What was the production technology of the ceramics
of Bec Berciassa? Which raw materials were used?
2. Materials and methods
All samples from the “Rittatore excavations” were analysed
with a lens, using a non-invasive approach. The results of
this frst survey allowed the identifcation of distinct groups
based on the coarse component of the mixture. On this basis,
a selection of fnds, representative of each group, was carried
out to realise petrographic thin sections. A total of 17 thin
sections, polished, were prepared (Table 1).
The polished thin sections were studied under optical
microscopy using an Olympus BX51 UV polarised light