Somma Vesuvio eruzioni

Palma Campania, the type-site of the Early Bronze Age Palma Campania culture, was covered by the products of the Avellino Pumice eruption, and was thus preserved in a similar way to the Roman sites in Campania covered by the AD 79 eruption. The devastating effects of this Plinian eruption led to the beliefthat it had killed a large part of the local population and/or caused large-scale emigration and landscapedesertification. However, new sites have been found that were established shortly after the eruption andgeoarchaeological studies of areas close to the Somma-Vesuvius volcano (Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Torre Annunziata/Oplontis, Pompeii) and also further away (the Benevento area, Irpinia and the Salerno area) haveshown continuity of occupation after the Avellino Pumice eruption and during the later, Middle Bronze Age, AP1 and AP2 eruptions. Palynological analysis also shows great similarity between the environments beforeand after the Avellino Pumice eruption. The pottery evidence is typologically very similar before and afterthe eruption, which suggests that the people who resettled the Campanian plain after the eruption wereclosely related to those living there previously, whose material culture is that of the Palma Campania culture. Radiocarbon dates also suggest a rapid recolonisation of some sites. In this paper we shall show thatalthough the pyroclastic products of the Avellino Pumice eruption certainly had a major impact on thelandscape (soils, flora, water resources) and may have killed off a percentage of the population in someareas, this eruption was not the main cause of the socio-economic and political transformations that occurredin this area during the Middle Bronze Age, which we believe to have been mainly caused by the cumulativeeffect of the later AP1 and AP2 eruptions.

ENGLISH: he 1631 eruption marked the beginning of the most recent eruptive cycle of the Neapolitan volcano, that ended three centuries later with the last effusive-explosive eruption of March 1944. The death toll from the catastrophic explosion of 1631 rose to at least 4,000 people out of a population of over 50,000 living in the area of Vesuvius. Moreover, 30 towns were affected; the eruption destroyed the aqueducts and led to a severe water crisis, with farmers’  elds being unusable for years. Not only did the 1631 explosion alter the morphology of Vesuvius, but it also changed the attitude of the inhabitants of the surrounding area towards it. The Neapolitan volcano became an object of popular imagination on a worldwide scale. On that catastrophe we have many documents and studies, but it is much more difficult to cross popular testimonies, unfiltered by the eyes of scholars, scientists or administrators. An authentically popular document, however, exists and is the pictorial exvoto. Unfortunately, however, in the Vesuvian sanctuaries the pictorial votive offerings of that event are very few compared to the enormity of the disaster. This paper investigates the reasons for this absence, stressing that the votive offering is an individual practice, while a disaster is a collective phenomenon, so it requires social responses, as in fact it was also in 1631 in Naples.

ITALIANO: a eruzione del 1631 segnò l'inizio del più recente ciclo eruttivo del vulcano napoletano, che si concluse tre secoli dopo con l'ultima eruzione effusiva-esplosiva del marzo 1944. Il bilancio delle vittime della catastrofica esplosione del 1631 è salito ad almeno 4.000 persone su una popolazione di oltre 50.000 abitanti della zona del Vesuvio. Inoltre, 30 città furono colpite; l'eruzione distrusse gli acquedotti e portò a una grave crisi idrica, con gli elfi dei contadini che rimasero inutilizzabili per anni. L'esplosione del 1631 non solo ha alterato la morfologia del Vesuvio, ma ha anche cambiato l'atteggiamento degli abitanti della zona circostante nei suoi confronti. Il vulcano napoletano divenne un oggetto dell'immaginario popolare su scala mondiale. Su quella catastrofe abbiamo molti documenti e studi, ma è molto più difficile incrociare testimonianze popolari, non filtrate dagli occhi di studiosi, scienziati o amministratori. Un documento autenticamente popolare, invece, esiste ed è l'exvoto pittorico. Purtroppo, però, nei santuari vesuviani gli exvoto pittorici di quell'evento sono molto pochi rispetto all'enormità del disastro. Questo documento indaga le ragioni di questa assenza, sottolineando che l'offerta votiva è una pratica individuale, mentre la catastrofe è un fenomeno collettivo, quindi richiede risposte sociali, come del resto avvenne anche a Napoli nel 1631.

Settlements and houses from the Early Bronze Age
in Campania: three case studies
Three Bronze Age settlements in Campania are examined and discussed here: Nola, Gricignano, and Afragola. All were affected in different ways by the Avellino Plinian eruption of Mount Vesuvius (355o ± 2o BP, 1952–1778 cal BC 2σ). Nola and Afragola were destroyed, while in Gricignano, an older settlement already deserted when the eruption occurred, the agrarian structures were fossilised by the eruption.
In Gricignano, the main axis of the settlement ran in a
north-west/south-east direction, and the same orientation
appeared again in the house structures. Most of the houses had a rectangular ground-plan with an apse, and were of various sizes (ranging from 1o m or less to more than 2o m). A similar typology appeared at Afragola and Nola, where timberbuilt houses with a single nave, an apse at one end, and a ridge beam supported by internal posts were attested.
Small, square or rectangular structures probably served
either as storage facilities, possibly silos, or as stables. The three sites appeared to lack any defensive structures, a common characteristic of Early Bronze Age settlements of the region (Palma Campania Culture). At Afragola, the eruption razed the village to the ground – both houses and ancillary structures. At Nola, the specific nature of the eruption (with a phreatomagmatic phase following the deposition of pumice) resulted in the creation of a layer of hardened ash, forming a natural negative mould that permitted the documentation of the structures to a height of 1.4 m. At Nola, it was also possible to investigate in detail the building construction techniques,
the arrangement of domestic items (vessels and utensils
found in situ in different rooms) and the methods of preserving and storing foodstuffs, and to calculate the original height of the houses (3.75–7.5 m).
Finally, the detailed analysis made it possible to model
both the « horseshoe-shaped » dwellings typical of the region and the common metric unit upon which their construction  was based, which was found to correspond exactly with the units of measurement used in Roman times.

Archaeological excavations over the last 40 years in Campania (southern Italy) confirm intense human occupation since the early Bronze Age (EBA). A pedological analysis of a ∼9 m deep pedos-tratigraphic sequence at Palma Campania (Naples) provides insights into fertility, rates of soil formation, and environmental conditions over the past 10 kyr. Fourteen volcanic soils formed in parent materials from Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei volcanic eruptions were analyzed. Results show that soils differ markedly in terms of thickness, andic properties, chemical fertility, and degree of development. Chemical properties, along with specific soil micromorphological features (such as silt coatings, laminar structure, iron segregations), are interpreted in terms of pedogenetic processes and used to reconstruct past environmental conditions. The degree of soil development, evaluated on the basis of organic matter content and some andic properties, proved more indicative of climate and geomorphological stability than duration of pedogenesis. Since the excavation also revealed an extensive EBA paleosurface and soil, targeted analyses were carried out to gain a better understanding of the impact of human activities and domestic animals on soil properties. K E Y W O R D S degree of soil development, paleopedology, soil chronosequence, soil fertility, tephrostratigraphy

"Il mistero del poeta Giovan Pietro Massari, cittadino oratinese e napoletano" è il titolo della postfazione al volume di Dante Gentile Lorusso, “Giovan Pietro Massari. Un poeta di Oratino nella Napoli del Primo Seicento”, Roma 2018.

Del sacerdote G. P. Massari, personaggio di rilievo nella Napoli spagnola della prima metà del Seicento, si era persa ogni traccia.

Incerto l'anno di nascita, probabilmente 1580 circa. Nessun dubbio, invece, sulla patria di origine, Oratino, rivendicata in ogni sua opera: componimenti encomiastici: apologie, elogi ed epigrammi quasi tutti in latino, pubblicati in opuscoli rari e nei prologhi anteposti a tutta una serie di volumi che furono stampati a Napoli dal 1632 al 1656 (ma anche a Roma, Trani, Avellino e Venezia).

Un corpus che attende di essere investigato più a fondo. Qui ci si limita a riconoscere al sacerdote, professore di teologia, protonotario apostolico, giureconsulto oratinese, l’erudizione, la perizia del grammatico e del latinista, la venerazione per il mondo classico: qualità che ne fecero un punto di riferimento. Ma non un poeta. Gli nocque la convinzione che la poesia sia nel rituale, in formule codificate, nei brani dei poeti del passato, e quindi nella riproposizione dei miti e degli eroi classici, con il metro, le sonorità, i versi memorabili o almeno gli emistichi più incisivi di sempre. Per non parlare degli stereotipi che lo portavano a scomodare Giove per lodare ogni monarca, viceré, principe, duca; e Marte per ogni cavaliere, Minerva per ogni magistrato o giurisperito, Mercurio per ogni avvocato, Venere per ogni gentildonna… Senza disdegnare, in alcuni ma assai significativi casi, non encomiabili, l’uso della produzione altrui riconvertita in propria.

La Campanie est une région profondément marquée par la tectonique et l’activité volcanique. Diverses éruptions ignimbritiques et pliniennes ont eu des répercussions sur l’évolution des lignes de rivage. La communication examine 4 cas d’étude significatifs concernant plusieurs sites archéologiques du littoral depuis Mondragone (l’antique Sinuessa), au Nord de la région, jusqu’à Salerne. A Mondragone, comme à Pouzzoles, les fluctuations des lignes de rivage et la submersion d’un vaste secteur du littoral sont liées au bradysisme et au volcanisme local. Au sud de Pompéi, la plaine du fleuve Sarno caractérisée par des mouvements de subsidence de 2mm/an, est en train de restituer un village de l’ âge du Fer, unique en son genre, qui pose le problème des transformations survenues depuis l’Antiquité dans ce secteur. A Salerne, enfin, un village protohistorique a été détruit par un raz de marée. Quelle origine proposer pour ce tsunami de l’âge du Bronze?

Palma Campania, the type-site of the Early Bronze Age Palma Campania culture, was covered by the products of the Avellino Pumice eruption, and was thus preserved in a similar way to the Roman sites in Campania covered by the AD 79 eruption. The devastating effects of this Plinian eruption led to the belief that it had killed a large part of the local population and/or caused large-scale emigration and landscape desertification. However, new sites have been found that were established shortly after the eruption and geoarchaeological studies of areas close to the Somma-Vesuvius volcano (Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Torre Annunziata/Oplontis, Pompeii) and also further away (the Benevento area, Irpinia and the Salerno area) have shown continuity of occupation after the Avellino Pumice eruption and during the later, Middle Bronze Age, AP1 and AP2 eruptions. Palynological analysis also shows great similarity between the environments before and after the Avellino Pumice eruption.
The pottery evidence is typologically very similar before and after the eruption, which suggests that the people who resettled the Campanian plain after the eruption were closely related to those living there previously, whose material culture is that of the Palma Campania culture. Radiocarbon dates also suggest a rapid recolonisation of some sites. In this paper we shall show that although the pyroclastic products of the Avellino Pumice eruption certainly had a major impact on the landscape (soils, flora, water resources) and may have killed off a percentage of the population in some areas, this eruption was not the main cause of the socio-economic and political transformations that occurred in this area during the Middle Bronze Age, which we believe to have been mainly caused by the cumulative effect of the later AP1 and AP2 eruptions.

The mountainous inland of northern Calabria (Southern Italy) is known for its sparse prehistoric human occupation. Nevertheless, a thorough multidisciplinary approach of field walking, geophysical survey and invasive research led to the discovery of a major archaeological archive. This archive concerns a rich multi-phased dump, spanning about 3000 years (Late Neolithic to Late Imperial Roman Age) and holding two Somma-Vesuvius tephra. Of these, the younger is a distinct layer of juvenile tephra from the Pompeii eruption, while the older concerns reworked tephra from the Bronze Age AP2 eruption (ca. 1700 cal. yr BP). The large dump contains abundant ceramics, faunal remains and charcoal, and most probably originated through long-continued deposition of waste in a former gully like system of depressions. This resulted in an inversed, mound-like relief, whose anthropogenic origin had not been recognized in earlier research. The tephras were found to be important markers that support th...

Archaeological excavations over the last 40 years in Campania (southern Italy) confirm intense human occupation since the early Bronze Age (EBA). A pedological analysis of a ∼9 m deep pedos-tratigraphic sequence at Palma Campania (Naples) provides insights into fertility, rates of soil formation, and environmental conditions over the past 10 kyr. Fourteen volcanic soils formed in parent materials from Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei volcanic eruptions were analyzed. Results show that soils differ markedly in terms of thickness, andic properties, chemical fertility, and degree of development. Chemical properties, along with specific soil micromorphological features (such as silt coatings, laminar structure, iron segregations), are interpreted in terms of pedogenetic processes and used to reconstruct past environmental conditions. The degree of soil development, evaluated on the basis of organic matter content and some andic properties, proved more indicative of climate and geomorphological stability than duration of pedogenesis. Since the excavation also revealed an extensive EBA paleosurface and soil, targeted analyses were carried out to gain a better understanding of the impact of human activities and domestic animals on soil properties. K E Y W O R D S degree of soil development, paleopedology, soil chronosequence, soil fertility, tephrostratigraphy