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| La Marmotta | |
|---|---|
| Name | La Marmotta |
| Location | Lake Bracciano, Lazio, Italy |
| Period | Neolithic |
| Discovered | 1989 |
| Archaeologists | Giuseppe Pennetti, University of Rome La Sapienza, Soprintendenza Archeologia del Lazio |
| Cultures | Impressed Ware culture, Cardial Ware |
La Marmotta La Marmotta is a Neolithic lakeshore settlement in Lazio, Italy notable for well-preserved organic remains and waterlogged deposits. Excavations have revealed house structures, botanical assemblages, and wooden artifacts that have informed debates in European Neolithic, Mediterranean prehistory, and archaeobotany. The site has been compared with contemporaneous sites such as La Draga, Castel di Guido, and Sesklo in regional syntheses by researchers from University of Rome La Sapienza, British Museum, and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
La Marmotta has been framed within research on the spread of Neolithic Revolution innovations across the Mediterranean Sea and continental Europe. The site sits in the basin of Lake Bracciano near Anguillara Sabazia and features waterlogged contexts that preserve perishable materials similar to deposits at Halki Tepe, Llyn Fawr, and Star Carr. Key investigators include teams from Soprintendenza Archeologia del Lazio, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", and scholars associated with Instituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protostoria.
La Marmotta was located during underwater surveys coordinated by the Soprintendenza Archeologia del Lazio and first systematically excavated in the late 1980s and 1990s under archaeologists from University of Rome La Sapienza and collaborators from University College London and the University of Cambridge. The discovery prompted recording protocols influenced by standards from ICOMOS and field methodologies paralleled at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Eridu for wet-site conservation. Funding and support derived in part from Italian cultural bodies such as the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali.
Stratigraphic sequences at La Marmotta document lacustrine silts, peat layers, and anthropogenic occupation horizons comparable to sequences at Brú na Bóinne and Valcamonica. Excavations revealed wooden piles, plank floors, and house plans preserved in anoxic sediments, prompting specialists from Oxford Archaeology and École Française de Rome to apply wetland stratigraphic models used at Polderweg and Neolithic Lake Dwellings of Switzerland. Facies analyses referenced work by geologists from CNR and palaeolimnologists associated with ETH Zurich.
Recovered artifacts include pottery with impressed decoration resonant with Impressed Ware culture and Cardial Ware, stone tools of flint and obsidian linked to sources like Lipari and Vulcano, and wooden implements comparable to objects from Mästermyr and Hulme Hoard assemblages. Organic finds comprise basketry, textile fragments, and wooden canoe fragments that invoked comparisons to collections at the British Museum, Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico "L. Pigorini", and National Archaeological Museum, Naples. Conservation efforts invoked protocols practiced at The British Museum Conservation Department and laboratories such as CNR-ISPC.
Zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical evidence indicates exploitation of cultivated cereals, pulses, and domesticated animals, intersecting with wild resources from Tyrrhenian Sea fisheries and lake fowling comparable to subsistence signatures at Franchthi Cave and Neolithic Greece. Finds include cereals akin to taxa documented by researchers at Jena University and faunal assemblages studied by specialists from University of Florence and Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. Interpretations engage models of exchange and mobility discussed in literature involving Anatolian Neolithic contacts, Cardial Ware dispersal, and island networks such as Sardinia and Corsica.
Pollen, diatom, and macrofossil analyses performed by palaeoecologists associated with University of Rome Tor Vergata and University of Barcelona reconstruct a mesic lacustrine environment undergoing human-induced change during the early Holocene. Radiocarbon dates produced by laboratories like Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement and Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit place occupations in the sixth millennium BCE, aligning with chronologies established for Central Mediterranean Neolithic sequences and calibrated against dendrochronological control from Alps datasets.
La Marmotta has been pivotal in debates about maritime colonization, agrarian frontiers, and the role of lakeshore communities in the diffusion of Neolithic lifeways across the Mediterranean Sea and into continental Europe. Its exceptional preservation of organics has made it a touchstone in comparative studies with Cardial Neolithic sites, influencing theoretical frameworks from scholars at University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. The site continues to inform research agendas linked to conservation practice, prehistoric craft, and early agricultural economies studied by teams from Soprintendenza Archeologia del Lazio and partner institutions.
Category:Neolithic sites in Italy Category:Archaeological sites in Lazio