Robyn J Veal

Forest resources constituted a key ancient economic good. Access to forest resources was therefore of importance to various agents: regionally, at a polity level, and to individuals, rich and poor. A range of environmental, economic, and social factors influenced forest access. Ancient forests were important for the provision of wood products (timber and fuel), and nonwood products (including foodstuffs, leisure, water supply). Of these, timber and fuel were the most important economic goods. Wood could be sourced privately, but substantial forests and woodlands were state controlled. Raw wood or charcoal fuel were required domestically in every home, rich or poor, for cooking and heating, and especially in industries such as metal smelting and smithing; ceramics, lime and glass production; and fuelling the baths. Wood was the most important fuel in the Greco-Roman world, although non-wood fuels also played a part.1 Together with stone and cement, wood was an essential construction material. Its abundance, or lack, could materially affect a state's ability to wage war and carry out trade. R. Meiggs' important contribution collated the ancient historical sources relating to wood, especially its use as timber, and he incorporated archaeological evidence where it was available.2 This discussion seeks now to highlight new archaeological and scientific data, and nuance our understanding of inequalities of demand and supply of this important ancient commodity.

The goal of this chapter is to present a model for regional fuel production and consumption patterns in Roman Italy. The approach combines a ‘top down’ quantitative model (based on demographics and known fuel consumption patterns in other wood dependent societies), with a ‘bottom up’ view (from the archaeological charcoal data, modern ecology, and the historical sources). The approach described here has been developed through initial studies in Campania, and in particular, Pompeii, where the fuel supply from city to hinterland may be viewed, from data ranging from the 3rd c. BC to the AD 79 Vesuvian eruption. The present offering begins to explore how the Pompeiian/Campanian model may be applied to Rome and Lazio. Ultimately modeling fuel consumption patterns through greater temporal and spatial milieu should be possible with sufficient data collection. Lazio and Campania, however, must be considered fairly exceptional cases for fuel consumption in comparison with the rest of the empire.

The Roman economy is increasingly illuminated by the application of scientific meth­ods to archaeological questions. At Pompeii, various studies have provided evidence for the scale of trade on local and regional bases. Yet the contribution of raw wood and wood charcoal as major energy sources to fuel the economy has rarely received attention, much less a detailed examination. In the Roman world wood was virtually the only source of fuel, since coal and peat were mostly unknown in the Mediterranean world, and liquid petroleum products were not well understood. The Romans required wood to smelt met­als, make glass and ceramics, fuel public baths, cremate the dead, and build warships and machines. At cities like Pompeii, wood and wood charcoal were employed both in indus­try, for cooking and heating in bakeries, inns and fullonicae, and in households. Through a synthesis of historical, archaeological and ecological data, wood charcoal fragments collected spatially and temporally at fo...

Charcoal reports from prehistoric times provide us with large scale, extended diachronic studies which predominantly address the question of environmental reconstruction. In contrast, this paper examines charcoal recovered from the excavations of one Pompeiian dwelling from its modest beginnings circa 350 BC to its final destruction in AD 79. The Casa delle Vestali, excavated 1995-2000 by the Anglo-American Project in Pompeii, forms part of ongoing excavations of an entire city block in Regio VI.i. Preliminary anthracological analysis of the property, combined with ancient historic and modern phytosociological resources demonstrate that even small quantities of data can shed light on cultural and economic phenomena in pre-Roman and Roman Pompeii. Early results indicate strong selection of high calorific fuels throughout the period. It is postulated that most of the taxa identified grew in lower level managed montane deciduous forests or higher altitude natural forests, thus demonstr...

Gli antracoresti sono comuni nei siti geologici ed archeologici in prossimità di insediamenti romani. Essi costituiscono il risultato di processi naturali (combustione della vegetazione naturale e processi piroclastici) e di processi antropici (combustione della legna da ardere ed eventi castrofici causati dal fuoco). Gli antracoresti sono raccolti da geologi ed archeologi usando una varietà di metodi che includono tecniche a mano, a setaccio, la flotazione di campioni di suolo e il campionamento delle sezioni verticali di scavo. Gli antracoresti possono essere utilizzati per datare il sito, per la ricostruzione dell’ambiente e per la definizione degli usi del legno e della legna. Lo studio attualmente in corso da parte degli autori mira a proporre una revisione delle attuali linee di ricerca antracologica

Bio-archaeological studies can contribute significantly to understanding the economic interactions between cities and their hinterland. In Pompeii, where research has often been intramurally focussed, analysis of biological remains is often confined to bones and macro-botanicals consumed as foodstuffs. Charcoal, if collected, often remains unexamined, and yet this material is key to understanding the fuel economy of a city. This study has two goals: first, to describe an efficient method for charcoal sampling and analysis in a dense urban environment using only dry-sieved charcoals above 5 mm; and, second, in doing so, to demonstrate the dependent relationship between Pompeii and its hinterland for the provision of fuel in a case study from the House of the Vestals. A pilot study of 25 contexts from six ‘rooms’ and 750 charcoal fragments was followed by an extended study of 62 contexts over 14 rooms (a total of 1579 charcoal fragments). The extended results identified only two furth...

Reflectance is a method borrowed from coal studies which can estimate the absolute burn temperature of charcoals. Studies examining the usefulness of reflectance in archaeology are underway in a number of areas. This report details first results from reflectance testing of archaeological charcoals from known Irish Bronze Age cremations, which included calcinated bone. As calcination of bone occurs at 650 °C to ≥ 800 °C (Wahl, 1982), it was expected that the charcoals would reflect this temperature. This was not the case for identified charcoals > 2mm, nor for micro-charcoals of ca. 250 μm. Cultural depositional modalities, combustion completeness and taphonomic influences may have all played a part in this result which suggests that the usefulness of reflectance will depend on depositional circumstances and charcoal collection strategies.

Chapter sections on 'Villa Magna's Environment through Time' & 'Wood' (timber for building).  The first section synthesizes all macrobotanical (seed/shell) and charcoal results, while the second deals only with charcoal interpreted as timber for building.

The goal of this chapter is to present a model for regional fuel production and consumption patterns in Roman Italy.  The approach combines a ‘top down’ quantitative model (based on demographics and known fuel consumption patterns in other wood dependent societies), with a ‘bottom up’ view (from the archaeological charcoal data, modern ecology, and the historical sources). The approach described here has been developed through initial studies in Campania, and in particular, Pompeii, where the fuel supply from city to hinterland may be viewed, from data ranging from the 3rd c. BC to the AD 79 Vesuvian eruption. The present offering begins to explore how the Pompeiian/Campanian model may be applied to Rome and Lazio. Ultimately modeling fuel consumption patterns through greater temporal and spatial milieu should be possible with sufficient data collection. Lazio and Campania, however, must be considered fairly exceptional cases for fuel consumption in comparison with the rest of the empire.

Forest resources constituted a key ancient economic good. Access to forest resources was therefore of importance to various agents: regionally, at a polity level, and to individuals, rich and poor. A range of environmental, economic, and social factors influenced forest access. Ancient forests were important for the provision of wood products (timber and fuel), and non-wood products (including foodstuffs, leisure, water supply). Of these, timber and fuel were the most important economic goods. Wood could be sourced privately, but substantial forests and woodlands were state controlled. Raw wood or charcoal fuel were required domestically in every home, rich or poor, for cooking and heating, and especially in industries such as metal smelting and smithing; ceramics, lime and glass production; and fuelling the baths. Wood was the most important fuel in the Greco-Roman world, although non-wood fuels also played a part.  Together with stone and cement, wood was an essential construction material. Its abundance, or lack thereof, could materially affect a state’s ability to wage war and carry out trade. R. Meiggs’ important contribution collated the ancient historical sources relating to wood, especially its use as timber, and he incorporated archaeological evidence where it was available.  This discussion seeks now to highlight new archaeological and scientific data, and nuance our understanding of inequalities of demand and supply of this important ancient commodity.

Fuel was an essential commodity in every ancient society, as it is today. It was required every day in industry for manufacturing metals, ceramics, glass, lime and other products. It was also required in every household for cooking and heating. While industrial needs have often dominated scholarship (in particular, considerations of the production of charcoal for metal smelting and smithing), fuel used in food production was a significant consumer of both raw wood and charcoal fuel. Non-wood fuels also played a part in food preparation, including some plants that acted as both food and fuel. This article aims to highlight the scale and scope
of food preparation under different circumstances, especially in relation to fuel consumption, and to look briefly at demand and supply issues of fuel.

Wood atlases typically group Carpinus, Corylus and Alnus together in a table of Betulaceae to differentiate taxa with aggregate rays from each other.  Atlas authors are not always in agreement with each other about the finer details of ray height, ray type, and presence or absence of spiral thickening, among other characteristics.  This presents the analyst of archaeological charcoal with a dilemma.  It is precisely this fine detail which allows discrimination between taxa, so which author’s advice should be followed?  This short report overviews refinement of the Corylaceae, emphasizing the usefulness of this aspect of charcoal identification for socio-ecological interpretation.

This volume contains the charcoal reports produced annually by myself, together with overviews of other environmental archaeology activities of the Anglo-American Project in Pompeii, from 2003 to 2007.  It was collated and presented to the Pompeii Superintendency in February, 2009.  The finalised charcoal study for VI.1 formed my doctoral thesis and will shortly be published in revised form as ‘Fuelling Pompeii’ (Accordia, London).  Related papers may be downloaded at my academia.edu site. At the time of putting this report online, (2015) the publication for the House of the Surgeon is in press ((eds.) M Anderson and D. Robinson, Oxford Archaeology Reports), but as post-excavation funding has been very limited, further publications may be some time away.  Thus, in the interests of presenting data available, this interim overview is presented.  For more information on any ecofact type, please contact the relevant specialist directly (or me – for a contact email).  The team expresses its great appreciation for the use of the Laboratorio delle Ricerche Applicate at the Superintendency during excavation and post-excavation periods.  Thanks also to past and present staff: Prof’ssa Annamaria Ciarallo (past direttrice), Prof Ernesto di Carolis (present direttore), Dott. Antonio Stampone and Dott Luigi Buffone.  The support and interest of past and present Superintendents, Prof Giovanni Guzzo, and Prof Massimo Osanna, is also gratefully acknowledged.

Bio-archaeological studies can contribute significantly to understanding the economic interactions between cities and their hinterland. In Pompeii, where research has often been intramurally focussed, analysis of biological remains is often confined to bones and macro-botanicals consumed as foodstuffs. Charcoal, if collected, often remains unexamined, and yet this material is key to understanding the fuel economy of a city. This study has two goals: first, to describe an efficient method for charcoal sampling and analysis in a dense urban environment using only dry-sieved charcoals above 5 mm; and, second, in doing so, to demonstrate the dependent relationship between Pompeii and its hinterland for the provision of fuel in a case study from the House of the Vestals. A pilot study of 25 contexts from six ‘rooms’ and 750 charcoal fragments was followed by an extended study of 62 contexts over 14 rooms (a total of 1579 charcoal fragments). The extended results identified only two further (minor) taxa (represented by only three fragments). The most important wood identified was beech (Fagus sylvatica), which constituted 50–75 per cent of the fuel supply, depending on the time period. Beech grows preferentially above about 900 m in central and southern Italy. Pompeii lies at 30-m altitude with the nearest mountain areas at least 15 km away. The study suggests that a methodology that relies on collection of charcoal from routine dry sieving (5-mm grid), in soils where this is possible, can provide robust results in a cost effective manner in an urban setting.

Fuel in the ancient Mediterranean  has to date received little detailed analysis.  Humans in the Mediterranean consumed fuel in socio-culturally conditioned ways (i.e. history ‘in’ the Mediterranean); but that they could consume fuel at all, and which fuels were available in which areas, is very much a ‘history of’ topic.  Quantitative and qualitative studies of the economy have focused on production and trade of goods and slave labor, but the fuel economy has been difficult to trace in the historical sources, mentions being more incidental than material.  The most important archaeological evidence, i.e. that of the archaeological charcoal, is not yet routinely collected by all excavators.  This is an omission that begs attention, as ancient settlements could not function without fuel.  The gathering of wood for fuel occasionally resulted in dramatic changes in the environment when over-exploitation occurred (for example, on islands), while in other places, more sustainable practices appear to have occurred. (Wood was not the only fuel in many parts of the Mediterranean: animal dung and agricultural waste such as chaff and olive lees were also consumed.)  Geology, topography, and climate determine which trees may grow in a particular location; but politics, land ownership, cultural mores and agricultural practice moderated the physical factors. 
This contribution provides a framework for examining ancient Mediterranean cities’ fuel supplies. Archaeological charcoal is at the heart of this approach but aspects of the historic sources are also considered and a case study of Pompeii’s fuel economy c. third c. BC to AD 79 is briefly overviewed in line with the methodology suggested.  New scientific techniques beyond simple charcoal identification as to wood type have started to appear and are discussed here in terms of their usefulness for examining forest management and consumption.
Further aims of this contribution are to encourage researchers to collect charcoal, and to show the detailed ways in which it can now be used to examine a city’s fuel supply.  In time, with sufficient further research, it may be possible to synthesize regional patterns of supply and consumption for the Mediterranean (and the ancient world as a whole). Indeed the relevance of studying ancient wood fuel remains appears to have become greater today as we consider  modern problems of climate change, and the potential of pelletized wood (at perhaps 70% of the calorific value of coal)  as a part of our fuel future.

"The ancient Roman economy is an area of research which has increasingly been illuminated by the application of scientific methods to archaeological questions. In Pompeii in particular, various studies have been presented to provide evidence for the scale of trade on local and regional bases.  Among these studies one significant aspect of economic activity has been largely overlooked.  The contribution of raw wood and wood charcoal as the major energy sources to fuel the ancient economy has rarely received attention, much less a detailed examination.  Using data from four sites in Pompeii (ca. 3rd c. B.C. to A.D. 79), archaeological wood charcoal fragments collected spatially and temporally, and identified as to wood type, are expressly used to reconstruct the fuel economy of the city by synthesizing available historical, archaeological and ecological data.  The results have allowed the proposal of a base quantitative model for assessing the size of the fuel economy in Pompeii at A.D. 79. This approach could ultimately be useful for synthesizing results for the city of Rome and the greater Roman world in general."

"In urbanisation studies of Late Roman Britain, Silchester has been instrumental in the development of a more nuanced understanding of 'continuity'. With regard to natural resources, the consumption of foodstuffs has provided a picture of sophistication and complexity in the Late Roman civitas-capital, but fuel has yet to be explored there as a measure of continuity or decline. Previous researchers of Roman Britain have inferred a general picture of population decline and landscape abandonment on the basis of the re-afforestation of previously cultivated areas, although
the pattern varies across the country.  This study considers whether wood consumption patterns in Insula IX can provide evidence for a continuity of landscape exploitation by the town.
"

This chapter reports the charcoal results and environmental reconstruction from data collected by West Sussex Archaeology Ltd. on behalf of Country Market at Osborne Farm, Kingsley, Bordon, Hampshire, (February - November
2011.)  Three Romano-British pottery kilns, belonging to the Alice Holt industry, were excavated, together with a pit containing an Iron Age saddle quern, an earlier prehistoric/Romano-British field boundary and a post-medieval trackway.  The charcoal results relate only to the Late Roman Alice Holt kilns

"Reflectance is a method borrowed from coal studies which can estimate the absolute burn temperature of charcoals. Studies examining the usefulness of reflectance in archaeology are underway in a number of areas. This report details first results from reflectance testing of archaeological charcoals from known Irish Bronze Age cremations, which included calcinated bone. As calcination of bone occurs at 650 °C to ≥ 800 °C (Wahl 1982), it was expected that the charcoals would reflect this temperature. This was not the case for identified charcoals >2mm, nor for micro-charcoals of ca 250μm. Cultural depositional modalities, combustion completeness and taphonomic influences may have all played a part in this result which suggests that the usefulness of reflectance will depend on depositional circumstances and charcoal collection strategies.

Key words: Charcoal reflectance testing; taphonomy; micro-charcoals; charcoal collection strategies"

The term ‘vitrified’ is used to describe the glassy appearance of some charcoals recovered in the archaeological record. It has been generally considered that this phenomenon is a result of wood being subjected to high temperatures similar to the role of temperature in the formation of glass and pottery. Charcoals displaying characteristics of vitrification from three distinct archaeological contexts were analysed using reflectance microscopy to determine their temperature of formation. Charcoal was also generated in laboratory charring experiments at temperatures of 900–1100 °C for durations of 1, 6, 12 and 24 h to determine if subjection to high temperature led to vitrification. None of the laboratory-produced charcoals displayed characteristics of vitrification. Mean random reflectance of the vitrified archaeological fragments indicated temperature of formation from 310 to 530 °C. A charring experiment was also conducted, at 500 °C for 6 h, using green wood with some bark attached, and added sugars, but no evidence of vitrification was seen. Therefore vitrified charcoals do not result from high temperature charring or primarily from the use of green wood.

Charcoal reports from prehistoric times provide us with large scale, extended diachronic studies which predominantly address the question of environmental reconstruction. In contrast, this paper reports preliminary results from charcoal recovered from the excavations of one Pompeiian dwelling from its modest beginnings circa 350 BC to its final destruction in AD 79, to explore the fuel economy of Pompeii.

The analysis of wood and all of its uses in the ancient world has been substantially confined to architecture, furnishings and technology. The cultivation and use of wood for wood fuel, its conversion into wood charcoal, and its transport and sale to consumers, have only been examined in broad terms, or not at all. This is despite wood’s critical place as the major source of energy in the ancient economy. This fact is true even for the well-documented city of Pompeii, where an increasing number of well-stratified excavations below the Vesuvian eruption level (AD 79) have been undertaken. This study analyses charcoal remains from four recently excavated sites in Pompeii, and interprets the results in light of the literary, complementary archaeological and modern phytosociological evidence. The results show interesting patterns of wood selection for various cultural uses (including cooking and heating, metal working and domestic ritual). The major taxon identified is a montane species, Fagus sylvatica, (beech), and it is the preferred wood fuel in every site, constituting between 50-75% (depending on the time period) of the 3,911 fragments identified. Beech grows roughly above ca. 500m in southern Italy, and only grows well ca. 1200-1600m. Suitable sites are at least 15-25 km away from Pompeii in the surrounding mountain areas, roughly a day’s journey in ancient times. Sources of taphonomic bias are considered, together with indicators of wood management from tree ring patterns. Alternative mechanisms for the wood supply are presented. These have been developed in light of evidence about land ownership and trade systems in the hinterland, possible market mechanisms and evaluation of possible transport by land and river on the Campanian plain, and by coastal shipping from the Amalfi coastal area. Finally, the approximate size of the wood fuel economy is estimated at the Vesuvian destruction level using simplistic linear modelling. Published estimates of likely population ranges in AD79, together with estimated wood consumption levels (from ethnographic analogues) provide an ‘order of magnitude’ view of the wood supply. The correspondingly inferred forest sizes and types required to maintain such supply are considered. Charcoal theory and methodology, with a strong base in pre-historic archaeology, is revisited. The study offers refinements to current practice to suit a complex urban environment, providing a foundation for future work in the area.

Ancient Campania would seem an obvious regional choice for reconstructing the Roman environment, and subsequently, the types and values of the natural resources which formed a major part of the Roman economy.  Besides the famous archaeology of Pompeii, further environmental data sets are now being gathered, some of which reveal a climate much milder than the traditionally assumed ‘Mediterranean’ one of very dry Summers and wet Winters.  Pushing this data into an economic framework, together with discerning more clearly, landscape use over time as affected not only by climate and geology, but also by politics and market forces, is the goal of this research. The discussion will outline the variables and challenges in modeling the natural resource economy of Campania from the Republican period (4th c. BC) to the late Roman (5th c. AD).

Provisioning a Roman household has been well discussed in terms of diet and water supply.  A lacuna in scholarship on domestic consumption however, is the fuel supply.  Roman houses, whether modest or grand, required fuel, (either raw wood or charcoal fuel), every day to cook food and heat rooms, as well as to potentially heat a bathing suite, and to provision any cottage industry attached to the domus.  This paper will present archaeological charcoal evidence from Campania, to shed light on domestic fuel supply to Roman houses from the 3rd c. BC to the late Roman period.  Types of wood charcoal remains found in rich houses, and more modest areas in Pompeii will be considered, together with evidence from two villae rusticae located on the northern Vesuvian slopes.  Practical considerations of supply, transport, storage and daily management of consumption will be examined, and the wider problems of fuelling domestic spaces in larger cities such as Rome, will be briefly overviewed.

Session Chair #10220), and presenter: The study of dietary resources, and the ceramic vessels made and used to transport, cook and serve food stuffs have been utilized in the examination of the chaîne opératoire of food economics and trade in the ancient world.  In relation to food production and consumption, however, fuel has rarely been considered.  Wood, and wood charcoal were the most common fuels in the ancient Mediterranean however, ceramic vessels were being produced in environments where wood and wood charcoal would not have been available locally. In these cases various types of agricultural waste served as fuel.  These ‘alternate fuels’, especially olive pressings (‘pomace’), were important in wood-poor areas, but they were also used in wood–abundant areas.  Food was procured and produced on a domestic, and also an industrial basis in a range of environments.  Fuel was a critical aspect of this process from start to finish. Recent research has helped illuminate the strong connectivity between the production and consumption of fuel within a regional economy, and in particular, the role of food consumed as fuel and the fuel required in food production.  This session aims to examine the importance of fuel in this ‘production to consumption’ chain by introducing new areas of research relating to land exploitation and inter- and intra- regional dependencies for food and fuel supplies.

This presentation sought to offer both a quantitative and qualitative regional model for wood fuel production and consumption patterns in Roman Italy.  The approach combines both a ‘top down’ approach (i.e. an economic supply model based on demographics and known fuel consumption patterns in other wood dependent societies; as well as a ‘bottom up’ view (i.e. from the archaeological charcoal data).  The qualitative model proposed has been developed through initial studies in Campania, and in particular, Pompeii, where the fuel supply from city to hinterland may be viewed, from data ranging from the 3rd c. BC to the AD 79 Vesuvian eruption.  The chapter I will write for the conference publication will offer new archaeological data from ongoing research in Lazio and Rome and will further test and refine both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the model.  Ultimately modeling fuel consumption patterns through greater temporal and spatial milieu should be possible with sufficient data collection.

Fuel is a part of the ancient economy that has been little studied to date.  In ancient Britain, the site of Calleva Atrebatum (modern day Silchester), currently under seasonal excavation by the University of Reading, has provided charcoal remains that form the basis of evaluating this town’s consumption of wood for timber and construction.  This study will examine the evidence for Roman and Late Roman forest exploitation in and around Calleva, and overview new methods of analysis in charcoal research that are helping us to better quantify and qualify fuel’s place in the ancient economy.

The integration of historical and archaeological data to understand the ancient economy is now common.  Studies of agricultural and maritime resources established a path, however, less has been written about forests as an economic resource, although Russell Meiggs’ ‘Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean was a seminal turning point.  This book is still very important, but it focuses significantly on timber, as seen (mostly) through the documentary sources.  Fuel is in fact a much greater consumer of forest resources.  Further, fuel and timber were not only supplied from what, in modern terms, we would call ‘forest’; there were significant ‘non-forest’ areas that supplied wood, even in the city of Rome itself.  There were also many ‘non-wood’ products obtained from forest and woodland, which we have barely studied.  Archaeologists and ancient historians are increasingly comfortable with each others' data, but when it comes to archaeological science, the challenge is rather large.  Using examples from Pompeii, Rome, and elsewhere, this paper will consider the main historical sources briefly, and move to the most important archaeological data of the forest economy, namely archaeological charcoal from charred wood (both fuel and timber), and the developing types of science we may perform upon it.  Charcoal analysis has the potential to illuminate the forest economy in a variety of ways however we are still trying to define ‘forest’ as opposed to ‘non-forest’, and we want to know why forests changed through time.  A range of complex areas of study need to be considered to answer these questions, inter alia: law and the ownership of land, silvicultural practice, ethnographic data, demographics, ancient technology, and the geosciences, especially climate studies.  So we come full circle back to ancient history.  We need it more than ever once we have carried out our ‘science’ in order to take our interpretations beyond lists of wood or landscape types.  Many environmental specialists don’t read much ancient history, (and perhaps vice versa), and this explains why we seem to go forward in such a disjointed manner.  Perhaps it’s not only the lack of cross-boundary reading but also the jargonistic language we (all) use that sometimes makes our work a bit impenetrable to others.  Science’s authoritative tone can also be intimidating, but so-called hard data is interpreted as much as the texts may be.  Co-operative (and iterative) research is needed.  The challenge for ancient history will be to take the initiative and encourage the flowering of such co-operation.  Ancient history was after all, our starting point.

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Seminar Room,
University of Cambridge

Saturday, 12 March 2016: a day of presentations and discussions, open to all.
Please RSVP (to rjv33@cam.ac.uk ) as Science week activities will be going on around the campus, and the main door will be closed to the general public most of the day. 

Speakers will speak for approximately 30 minutes followed by 10 minutes of discussion.  Outside attendees may also stay for lunch for a small charge TBC.  Please indicate if you would like lunch.

From 8.30am - Coffee on arrival/ registration

9.15pm Dr Robyn Veal: Introduction
The next step in Roman economics: the materiality of organic things
This opening presentation will outline the current issues of emphasis in the Roman economy, which lie (mostly) in examining historical sources, and inorganic objects (artefacts). I will argue for the complexity and interconnectedness of organic and so-called inorganic material culture (most of which started as organic material, or at least as primary resources from a landscape).  I will set out our goals for the workshop and these will include auditing the data we have, finding better ways to synthesize our data, testing new landscape reconstructions, bringing sub-molecular studies into the picture (surprisingly little done in Campania), and also how to bring greater awareness of its importance to the classical community.

9.30 am Dr Elda Russo-Ermolli (University of Naples, Federico II): Pollen in Campania, how it connects to other data: scope and scale issues. (40 minutes)

10.10 am Dr Charlene Murphy (UCL): Macrobotanical studies in Campania: limits and opportunities, diet and trade. (40 minutes)

10.50am Morning coffee/tea

11.30am Dr Harriet Hunt (McDonald Institute): Latest archaeogenetic techniques, and their applicability to Campanian (macrobotanical) data: opportunities for extended economic and landscape understanding. (40 minutes)

12.10 pm Dr R Veal, Cambridge, with Dana Challinor, Oxford:  Auditing timber, fuel and non-wood fuels of the Campanian economy: how much data we have, and what new things it can tell us about the economy: arboriculture, micro-climate and ancient technology.  (40 minutes)

12.50 LUNCH Buffet lunch for speakers and discussants, and outside attendees providing an RSVP.

2pm PLENARY SPEAKER Professor Michael MacKinnon (University of Winnipeg): Zooarchaeology and our Understanding of Animals in Ancient Pompeii and the Region of Campania (40 minutes)

2.40pm Dr Emma Lightfoot (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research): The potential for isotopic studies on animal bones in Campania: data we need to collect, and questions we might answer. (40 minutes)

3.20 pm  Afternoon tea

3.50 pm Dr Duncan Keenan-Jones (University of Glasgow): The economy of aqueduct water in Campania. How much was there, who got it, how much it probably cost, and what role it probably played in municipal economies. (40 minutes)

4.30 pm Closing discussions

Dinner for participants: at the Eagle 7pm.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Sunday morning discussions: (closed session, by invitation)

9.00 Coffee/tea on arrival

9.30 am Framing the discussion and formulating the results

Dr Robyn Veal
Key historical events ca. 500 BC to AD 500

Dr Ferdinando de Simone (University of Naples Federico II/Brigham Young University): (paper read by R Veal).  Key elements in a new reconstruction of the Campanian economic landscape over time: viewing vines, olives and their trade using a modeling and GIS approach. 

10.00 am Workshop discussions
The goal of the discussions is to come to some understanding of how we might write more synthetic papers, even at this stage.  Ideas welcome, no boundaries!

Quantifying data: problems in different data types (summarise data we have), chronology, scope and scale summaries.

Consumption model: demography of Campania over time, how much each person consumed - is there space in the Campanian landscape for all things?



Basic production/landscape structure over time  – Production models (what grew where, and when?) (Presses for wine and olive oil, amphorae evidence), a framework.  How much grain grown? Where? Intra or inter-regional possibilities.

What about the northern part of Campania?

11.00 Coffee

11.30  Discussions continue

Climate issues: assuming climate is fairly constant – (or if we start early ca. 500-400  BC – it gets warmer – and population increases).  How quickly can agricultural production change in reaction to climate and market forces?

‘Ratios’ of different types – olives:wine; pigs:other meats; grain types, what ratios might work?  Modeling in general

Secondary processing: where and how? Transport?  Wool, Skins – pig, sheep, cattle? Chaine operatoire?  Clothing, footwear, fuel, food, (processed and unprocessed).

What we are missing: (fish products); organic industries (how to include these)

Closing remarks: where to next?

Formation of a research network

Publishing proposal: submitted to the Bulletin for the Institute for Classical Studies for a themed journal, initial response encouraging, final response pending mid March. Possible schedule. 

Next network workshop?

1pm-2.30pm  Lunch

Close

The discipline of environmental archaeology is approaching a number of cross roads that will challenge its existence and relevance in a world where humanities funding is shrinking, while archaeological scientific method is expanding.  The former makes project funding difficult, especially for environmental work, the latter offers a myriad of increased interpretational possibilities, but with a cost, as well as methodological challenges.  Archaeological funding generally, is diminishing world-wide, although European funding appears to be increasing in the Horizon 20/20 program for projects that will ‘make heritage a more economic and cultural social benefit.’  How environmental archaeologists respond to these challenges from both research, and policy/strategy viewpoints in the next few years will be very important.  To this end, this annual conference will be devoted to both of these issues – exploring them individually, and also in an integrated manner.  AEA for the first time will hold its annual conference in Rome.  Papers will be in English and Italian

"Session: 7G: Food and Fuel: New Approaches to Environmental Exploitation in the Ancient Roman Economy
Type: Colloquium
Timeslot: Sunday, January 5, 8:30 am - 11:30 am
Organizer(s): Robyn J Veal, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Girolamo F. de Simone, University of Oxford
Session Papers
1. Food and fuel in the villae of Vesuvius: scales of production and interdependent economies in Roman Campania
Girolamo F. De Simone, University of Oxford
2. Fuel in Food Production and Consumption in the Roman Economy
Robyn J. Veal, University of Cambridge
3. Clay – Creation – Carriage - Consumption. The Chaîne Opératoire in the Eastern Marmarica (NW-Egypt): a Case Study
Heike Möller, University of Cologne, and Anna-Katharina Rieger, University of Cologne
4. Food as Fuel: the Scale of Artificial Light Consumption at Pompeii
David Griffiths, University of Leicester
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Environmental archaeology specialists do not often frame their work in theoretical terms.  As a fairly youthful specialization, charcoal analysis in particular, lies on the fringe of Roman archaeology, and outside the UK, many classical archaeologists do not collect charcoal for a variety of reasons.  This paper proposes a ‘typology’ for charcoal that aims to clarify its usefulness for Roman archaeologists.  ‘Forms’ of charcoal: natural vs anthropogenic; raw wood burnt for the first time vs raw wood converted into charcoal and reburnt, and their ‘fabrics:’ structure to identify wood types and burn temperatures; tree rings for reading cropping strategies and end uses; analysis of biological and chemical inclusions to read taphonomy among other purposes, together provide a skeletal framework for this typology.  Once constructed, a site or regional typology, together with appropriate diachronic data and close synthesis with the archaeology, can expand charcoal results so that they may inform dating (not the Carbon dating kind, the relative kind), and ultimately answer much bigger questions about technology, economy, and social behaviour, beyond wood gathering.

This is an informal workshop on wood and charcoal research and related matters in Italy.  Anyone interested may attend (7th March, 2-7 pm) (no cost), but please RSVP for catering purposes.  The workshop will conclude with an Association for Environmental Archaeology sponsored seminar by Dr Elda Russo Ermolli (University of Naples, Federico II): ‘From landscapes to local historical contexts: the potentiality of palynology as a palaeoenvironmental tool.  Examples from Rome and elsewhere.’  Anyone interested in attending only the seminar, may do so, (commences 6pm).

FUEL AND FIRE IN THE ANCIENT ROMAN WORLD
Fuel is an area of research within studies of the ancient economy and the ancient environment that is relatively new. The size of the Roman fuel economy in the Mediterranean must have been large as fuel was required every day for domestic cooking and heating, and to fuel most industries.  This colloquium will employ a multi-disciplinary approach incorporating researchers with a variety of backgrounds from archaeology, science, history, technology and ethnography. We seek to define and expand the current state of research in the chaîne operatoire of industrial and domestic production technologies that utilised fuel, and to establish a fresh blueprint for examining the ancient fuel economy.
Sessions will encompass:
1) The science and history of fuel (both raw wood and charcoal fuel).  Questions shall include whether raw wood or charcoal fuel were used, in what quantities, and for which types of activity.
2) Kiln-based industries, such as pottery, glass and metal production, and their technology with respect to fuel will be examined. Archaeological and ethnographic studies will be complemented by scientific analyses to examine kiln temperatures and different types of fuels used.
3) The urban use of fuel, in particular, the preparation of food and heating of rooms and baths, as well as the use of food as fuel (for example, of olive oil consumption for lighting).
Papers will be presented at the Sainsbury Lecture Theatre, at the British School at Rome on Friday 8th and at the Villa Lante, the Finnish Institute of Rome, on Saturday morning of the 9th March, 2013. Open discussion will be encouraged after each session and will form an integral part of this conference, which will be open to the public and free of charge. William V Harris (Columbia) will give the keynote address at 6pm, Thursday 8th March at the BSR. 
Organised by: Dr Robyn Veal (University of Cambridge), Dr Victoria Leitch (University of Leicester), and sponsored by the British School at Rome and the Oxford Roman Economy Project.  For more information contact: robyn.veal@sydney.edu.au or victoriamleitch@googlemail.com.  A link will soon be available on the BSR website with a full list of speakers and program details: www.bsr.ac.uk/news/coming-up.

The 'AEA in Italy' seminar series is pleased to announce the fifth lecture in the series, and the first for 2014, by Professor Kimberly Bowes, Mellon Professor for Classical Studies, AAR, and Director-elect of the American Academy in Rome, to be held at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, Thursday, 24th April, at 6 pm, with drinks to follow.  Open to all, English and Italian