Independent Researcher

About

As a researcher I am particularly interested in the relationships between the meanings of material culture and the social and economic organization of late prehistoric communities. Under this perspective I have analyzed different aspects of the burial treatment of artefacts. My degree thesis (published in 1999) was on Early Iron Age burials of south Etruria (Villanovan culture) and included the employment of elementary statistical methods in the analysis of different combinations of artefacts in grave assemblages. My doctoral research project (published in 2005) addressed the topic of hammered bronze armour and vessels of Early Iron Age north-central Italy (10th - 7th centuries BC), aimed at investigating the specific function and significance of this artefacts class within the overall socio-economic and cultural context of Villanovan Etruria.  A research on working tools from Iron Age burials of Italy (published 2006) was carried out with the purpose of starting a reflection on the image of ‘workers’ in Italic contexts.
More recently I focussed on issues of group identification (ethnicity, social standing etc.) seen through aspects of material culture styles (female ornamentation, war equipment, styles of alcohol consumption). 
In the meantime I have been involved in a number of rescue and research excavations.
I have participated in many research groups on prehistoric and pre-Roman archaeological sites of central Italy, such as Tarquinii (northern Latium) and Rome. Since 2007 I have been a member of a multidisciplinary project of the University of Naples Federico II and the University of Siena on the Iron Age proto-urban centre of Trebbio di Sansepolcro, Arezzo (Northern Tuscany). This research
arises questions about nature and scale of the early developments towards urbanization in non-etruscan territories (centuries 8th to 6th BC) .