terramare-culture-poviglio-santa-rosa-ital

ARTICLE IN PRESS
Quaternary International 151 (2006) 87–98
Water management and land use in the terramare and a possible
climatic co-factor in their abandonment: The case study of the
terramara of Poviglio Santa Rosa (northern Italy)
Mauro Cremaschia,, Chiara Pizzia,1, Veruska Valsecchib,2
a
CNR-IDPA, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, v. Mangiagalli 34, 20132 Milano, Italy
Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain, 21, 3013 Bern, Switzerland
b
Abstract
The terramare, archaeological sites generated by a civilisation which settled the centre of the Po plain since the Middle Bronze age,
were abruptly abandoned at the end of the Recent Bronze age. The reason for this abandonment is still a matter of debate. In the context
of a multi-causal explanation, this paper discusses a possible climatic factor, inferred from recent discoveries at the site of Poviglio Santa
Rosa (northern Italy).
The culture of the terramare produced a systematic and intensive agricultural and pastoral exploitation of the environment and caused
heavy deforestation.
Water was a critical resource and was carefully managed. The moat which typically surrounded most of the sites was meant to
concentrate and redistribute water to the fields through a network of irrigation ditches. The study of the water wells discovered at the
fringe of the terramara of Santa Rosa reveals a drop in the water table during the late Recent Bronze age, caused by a dry event of
regional relevance.
Chronological contiguity, supported by the archaeological context between this occurrence and the abandonment of the terramare
system, strongly suggests a causative link between the two events.
The climatic event, a minor episode in the history of the Holocene climate, nevertheless acted as a catalyst in a stressed environment
whose resources were over-exploited by rising demographic pressure.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
1. Foreward
In Italian Prehistory, the term ‘‘terramare’’ is used to
indicate the banked and ditched villages, generally quadrangular in plan, of the Middle and Recent Bronze ages (c.
1650–1150 cal BC). Their name is derived from an old
Italian term used to indicate the organic rich earth—terra
marna—of mounds quarried as fertiliser in the 19th century
(Bernabò Brea and Mutti, 1994). The terramare are located
mostly in the modern Emilia sub-region, but also in
southern Lombardy and in south-western Veneto. About
200 sites have been found since the beginning of the
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Cremaschi).
C. Pizzi is responsible of the archaeological data.
2
V. Valsecchi is responsible of the palinological data.
1
researches carried out in the 19th century (Fig. 1). The
terramare are the archaeological remains of a complex
society whose subsistence was based on agriculture,
pastoralism, handicraft and long-distance trade, connecting the Po plain to northern and eastern Europe and to the
Mediterranean. The terramare settled the alluvial plain of
the Po as of the 16th century BC. They underwent
significant demographic growth during the second half of
the 15th century BC—at their apogee—and were abandoned abruptly at about 1150 BC as a consequence of a
societal collapse (De Marinis, 1975; Barfield, 1994; Balista
and De Guio, 1997; Bernabò Brea and Cardarelli, 1997;
Bernabò Brea et al., 1997; Cardarelli,1997; Pearce, 1998).
It is clear now that the collapse of the terramare system
is not linked to the climatic deterioration at the sub-Boreal/
sub-Atlantic transition (Cremaschi, 1991–1992), as was
reputed by Säflund (1939), since this event is at least three
1040-6182/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2006.01.020
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Fig. 1. Distribution of the Middle and Recent Bronze age sites in northern Italy. (1) Archaeological sites, (2) banked and ditched sites, (3) terramare
covering pile-dwellings sites, (4) Holocene palaeochannels, (5) Pleistocene moraines, (6) Pre-Holocene terraces, (7) Upper Pleistocene outwash fans and (8)
Holocene alluvial plain. Terramare quoted in the text: 1—Motta Balestri; 2—Santa Rosa; 3—Monticelli di Poviglio; 4—Case Cocconi; 5—Case del Lago;
6—Gaggio; 7—Fondo Paviani, 8—Castello del Tartaro; 9—Fabbrica dei Soci.
centuries more recent. The abandonment of the terramare
appears to be broadly parallel to the collapse of the late
Bronze age civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean (De
Marinis, 1975). More recently, a multi-causal explanation
in which environmental stress played a leading role has
emerged (Cremaschi, 1991–1992; Barfield, 1994; Bernabò
Brea et al., 1997; Pearce, 1998). Yet again, a recent
discovery in the terramara of Poviglio Santa Rosa (Reggio
Emilia—Italy) now suggests that a climatic event causing
dry conditions may have contributed to the final abandonment of the sites. The environmental context in which this
event occurred, strongly affected by human impact, will be
discussed, with emphasis on the water resources, critical to
the subsistence strategy of the terramare.
2. Terramare and hydrography
On the regional scale, the connection between the
terramare and fluvial network is systematic: each site for
which we have geomorphologic evidence is linked to a
palaeochannel which was active during the life of the site
(Ferri, 1996; Cremaschi, 1997; Balista, 2002).
For instance, in the Enza basin, in a central position with
respect to the terramare region, five large sites located at
regular intervals are lined along the palaeochannel of the
Enza river, which during the Bronze age connected the
Apennine fringe to the Po river (from South to North: Case
del Lago Case Cocconi, Monticelli di Poviglio, Santa Rosa
and Motta Balestri; Cremaschi, 1997, 2004) (Fig. 2). The
direction of their ramparts, large enough to be perceived on
a small-scale map, follows the former hydrographic trend,
of North-East orientation, as opposed to the present
drainage oriented to the North.
A close relation between individual sites and the
hydrography has been stressed since the beginning of the
archaeological investigation in the mid-19th century. The
traditional ideas are clearly summarised by Chierici (1871).
The inner part of the terramare and the outer ditches were
fed by an artificial channel deriving water from an adjacent
river.
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Fig. 3. Fabbrica dei Soci site: geomorphologic interpretation; (1) alluvial
ridge, (2) Tartaro palaeochannel and artificial channel, (3) moat and
rampart of the terramara, (4) roman centuriation and (5) present irrigation
ditches, location in Fig. 2 (after Cremaschi, 1997).
Fig. 2. Geomorphology of the area of Enza Basin. (1) S. Ilario alluvial
fan, (2) palaeochannel, (3) Praticello palaeochannel, (4) alluvial ridge, (5)
phreatic pool and related drainage, (6) boundary of swamp areas, (7)
Bronze age sites, (8) banked and ditched terramare, (9) roman age
centuriation and (10) contour lines. Terramare quoted in the text: 1—
Motta Balestri; 2—Santa Rosa; 3—Monticelli di Poviglio; 4—Case
Cocconi; 5—Case del Lago (after Cremaschi, 1997).
Recent geomorphologic research based on an examination of aerial photographs has confirmed the model which
can be applied to most of the sites (Mutti, 1993; Ferri,
1996; Cremaschi, 1997). An impressive example is constituted by the Fabbrica dei Soci site (Balista and De Guio,
1990–1991, Cremaschi, 1997) which is located North of the
Po in the plain South of Verona. The site (Fig. 3),
rectangular in plan and surrounded by an earth rampart,
was built close to a palaeochannel of the Tartaro river,
from which an artificial drainage was abducted to feed the
moat surrounding the terramara.
Where river courses were not easily accessible, minor
drainage and phreatic pools were also used. The terramara
of Case del Lago, the largest (22 ha) of the terramare
system, was built in connection with a large phreatic pool,
which was not exhausted during the Bronze age. Today it
has been harnessed by the waterworks to supply the city of
Reggio Emilia (Cremaschi, 1997).
Management of water was not limited to the capture
and adaptation of natural streams, but also encompassed
artificial ditches and channels for irrigation. In the case
of the Castello del Tartaro (Balista, 1997; Cremaschi,
1997)—Grandi Valli Veronesi, North of the Po—the
irrigation channels were conducted outward from the moat
of the site to distribute the water to cultivated fields.
This case is not isolated, similar evidence having been
recently discovered in several sites, as in the terramara di
Gaggio (Modena) (Balista et al., 2003). At Case Cocconi
(Bronzoni and Cremaschi, 1989), the terramara, 15 ha
wide, is included in a concentric belt about 60 ha wide
(Fig. 4). This area, probably devoted to specialised
agriculture, was delimited by a deep ditch, excavated
during the Bronze age and still perfectly perceivable in the
present landscape. A peripheral ditch was recently observed (Bernabò Brea and Mutti, unpublished) also in the
Case del Lago terramara.
Water resources appear to have been critical for the
subsistence of the terramare. In the country outside the
sites, the existence of a network of irrigation ditches
originating from the moats demonstrates that these
structures, beyond defensive purposes, were mostly
planned to collect and channel the water, and redistribute
it to irrigate the fields.
3. Land use
The average density of the terramara settlements is one
site per 25 km2, and in some areas, it rises to one site per
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Fig. 4. Case Cocconi terramara. (1) Natural drainage, (2) roman centuriation, (3) contour lines, (4) area of the site delimited by the Bronze age ditch and
(5) possible terramara size, location in Fig. 1 (after Cremaschi, 1997) .
10 km2. This estimation is to be regarded as minimum as
large areas of the Po plain were buried by later flooding
and they may hide sites at present inaccessible to
investigation (Cardarelli, 1989; Cremaschi, 1991–1992).
Owing to the high concentration of sites and the fact that
for each of them the primary economy was intensive
agriculture (Cremaschi, 1991–1992; Cardarelli, 1997; Forni, 1997) and local pastoralism (De Grossi Mazzorin and
Riedel, 1997; Riedel, 2004), a strong exploitation of the
land surrounding the sites is to be expected.
Pollen analyses indicate that an open landscape surrounded the terramare from the Middle Bronze age
onward. This has been proven by the pollen diagram
recently obtained from the site of Parma (Valsecchi, 2004/
2005), which dates back to this period both on the base of
the archaeological (Catarsi Dall’Aglio, 1989) and of
radiocarbon dates, recently obtained (Fig. 5). The deforestation rate is rather high all along the stratigraphic
sequence (NAP—non-arboreal pollen—from 60% to
80%), and anthropogenic indicators, cereals particularly,
are well represented everywhere.
However, when we compare the deforestation rate in the
region of the terramare during the Middle and Recent
Bronze age (XVI–XII centuries BC) (Ravazzi et al., 1992,
2004, Bandini Mazzanti et al., 1996; Cardarelli, 2004) to
that of the surrounding regions—as indicated by the pollen
records from southern Switzerland, northern Italy and
peninsular Italy (Fig. 6)—we perceive that the terramare
area appeared as a wide, artificial clearing, surrounded by
dense forests.
A tendency toward a more open environment appeared,
during the final Middle Bronze age, in the stratigraphic
sequence of the terramara of Montale (Cardarelli, 2004),
and the pollen record from the infilling of the ditches of the
terramara Santa Rosa at Poviglio indicates that, during the
Recent Bronze Age, the deforested area spread significantly
(AP—arboreal pollens—rate decreasing from 27% in
Middle Bronze age to 19% in Recent Bronze age) (Ravazzi
et al., 2004).
An increase in the clearance of woods follows a main
change in the settlement pattern. In their early phases, the
terramare were generally no bigger than 2 ha, while in the
Recent Bronze age, within a general increase in the density
of sites, several reached considerable dimensions: Case del
Lago 22 ha (Bernabò Brea et al., 1997); Fondo Paviani
16 ha (Balista, 1997), Santa Rosa 7 ha (Bernabò Brea and
Cremaschi, 1997).
Recent work in palaeobotany has focused on the concept
of the pollen source area and its importance when
interpreting spatial representation of human activity (e.g.
Sugita, 1994, 1998; Dumayne-Peaty, 2001). The Relevant
Source Area (RSA—the area from which the pollen
deposited at a site comes from) calculated for the terramara
of Poviglio indicates that the area deforested and cultivated
around the site was 1 km wide during the Middle Bronze
age and expanded to 4 km during the Recent Bronze age
(Ravazzi et al., 1992; Ravazzi et al., 2004).
When we extend the information obtained from Poviglio
to the other sites of the Enza basin, we observe that the
open areas around the individual sites intersect, indicating
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Fig. 5. Pollen diagram of the Parma terramara. The whole sequence dates back to the Middle Bronze age. Radiocarbon dates: cm 28 , Poz-12160 AMS
3205 730 BP; cm 212, Poz-1261 AMS 3190 730 BP.
that wood cover became very scarce or completely absent
over most of the area (Fig. 7).
Enhanced needs of cleared land for food supply,
compelled by the rising demographic pressure (Bernabò
Brea et al.,1997; Cardarelli, 1997; Bernabò Brea and
Cremaschi, 2004a), can be regarded as a main cause of
such intense deforestation.
High demand of timber for building purpose was a
further determining factor of the deforestation: the
terramare were made mostly of wood. The houses of the
Santa Rosa terramara during the Middle and Recent
Bronze ages were built on posts (Bernabò Brea and
Cremaschi, 2003), and more than 10 000 trees per hectare
may have been required for their construction.
Furthermore, signs point to stressed resources during the
late Recent Bronze age. A land evaluation procedure
(FAO, 1976; Kammersmans et al., 1985) applied to the
soils of the Enza basin for cereals (Cremaschi, 1991–1992)
indicates that the productivity was suitable for the
hypothesised annual demand of a village during the Middle
Bronze age, but possibly inadequate to answer the
requirement of growing population during the late Recent
Bronze age.
During the Recent Bronze age, in the terramara of Santa
Rosa, the houses were no longer built on piles, but set on
the ground according to the block-house technique, which
needs less wood (Bernabò Brea et al., 2003; Bernabò Brea
and Cremaschi, 2004a). This change in construction
technique occurred in the frame of the same cultural
context and is contemporary to the maximum extent of the
deforested areas. Therefore, it may be interpreted as
evidence of strong reduction, or even exhaustion of wood
suitable for building purpose. A similar trend in depletion
of wood availability, consequent to highly demanding
construction technique, is also recorded in the early-middle
Bronze age sites of the south-western Germany (Billamboz
et al., 1988).
All these circumstances persuade to hypothesize an
environmental scenario in which the possibility of finding
new land to expand agriculture and pastoralism was
strongly reduced and the resources of the already exploited
area dramatically subsided.
4. The hydraulic systems in the terramara of Santa Rosa: a
drop in water availability at the final stage of the site
Detailed information about the exploitation of water
resources in the terramare comes from the site of Poviglio
Santa Rosa, located 5 km South of the present course of
the Po river, and under excavation since 19843 (Bernabò
Brea and Cremaschi, 2004b). The site, as clearly seen in the
aerial photograph (Fig. 8), is delimited by two strips of
3
The excavation, promoted by the Soprintendenza Archaeologica
dell’Emilia Romagna in cooperation with the University of Milan, is
directed by M. Bernabò Brea and M. Cremaschi.
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Fig. 6. Wood cover (AP) during the Middle and Recent Bronze ages in
Italy. (1) Fiavè (Greig, 1984), (2) Lago del Frassino (Bertoldi, 1968), (3)
Biandronno e Ganna (Schneider, 1978), (4) Prato Mollo (Cruise, 1990), (5)
Prato Spilla (Lowe, 1992), (6) Poviglio (Ravazzi et al., 2004), (7) Montale
(Cardarelli, 2004), (8) Monte Castellaccio (Bandini Mazzanti et al., 1996);
(9) Lago Padule (Lowe and Watson, 1993), (10) Lagaccione and Lago di
Vico (Magri, 1997), (11) Lago Albano (Lowe et al., 1996), (12) Valle di
Castiglione (Magri, 1997), (13) Canolo Nuovo (Schneider, 1985), (14)
Central Adriatic core pal 94-8 (Lowe et al., 1996) and (15) Central
Adriatic core rf 93–30 (Lowe et al., 1996). AP—arboreal pollen; NAP—
non-arboreal pollen.
clear-coloured soil consisting of the earth ramparts built
during its last phase. The smaller village (Villaggio Piccolo)
to the North is the oldest part, founded during the Middle
Bronze age. A U-shaped rampart delimits the larger part of
the site (Villaggio Grande), which mostly dates to the
Recent Bronze age (Cremaschi et al., 1994).
The hydraulic system was discovered at the southern
part of the Villaggio Grande in coincidence with the
palisade and the connected structures located at the very
fringe of the site and in the peripheral moat, just outside of
it (Fig. 9).
In correspondence with the palisade, and distributed
along it, 45 large water wells were found, dug inside the
loamy clay ground of the terramara. They were excavated
to reach two sand layers acting as aquifers at the depth of 2
and 3 m, respectively, from the base of archaeological
deposit (Pizzi and Cremaschi, 2004).
The fill of these water wells, clayey in texture, displays
complex stratigraphy consisting of organic material,
Fig. 7. Relevant Source Area (RSA) of the terramare in the lower basin of
the Enza river. (1) Large-sized terramare, (2) middle-sized terramare, (3)
small-sized terramare, (4) RSA of the Middle Bronze age, (5) RSA of the
Recent Bronze age and (6) Apennine fringe.
laminated deposits and material fallen from the walls,
which indicates that the wells collapsed and were reexcavated several times during their life. In the last phase,
they were used as reservoirs and finally sealed by dump.
The archaeological evidence included in them (Cremaschi
and Pizzi, in press) indicates that they were used for a long
period from the late Middle Bronze age (about
1400–1330 cal BC), the period of the foundation of the
Villaggio Grande, up to its apogee, in the Recent Bronze
age (1330–1170 cal BC).
Some of the wells are interconnected by small ditches,
dug out in order to bring the water outside the site, in the
direction of the peripheral moat, and not inside the village.
This is particularly clear for the well-denominated US
(Stratigraphic Unit) 2206, which is located close to the
south-western gate of the village. A ditch is conducted from
the upper limit of the well with the purpose of bringing
water rising from the water table to fill some cisterns
opened inside the moat (Fig. 10).
Outside the palisade, to the South, is the moat
surrounding the village (Fig. 11). While still apparent in
the present topography, it is almost sealed by sediments
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which were deposited long after the abandonment of the
terramara, during the Roman and the Medieval periods.
The Bronze Age stratification included inside the moat is
Fig. 8. Santa Rosa terramara (RE). The aerial photograph. Lightcoloured strips indicate the perimeter of the terramara. The small village
(Villaggio Piccolo) to the North and the large village (Villaggio Grande)
just below.
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very thin, clayey and deprived of sedimentary structures,
indicating both that the ditch was kept clean and that it
was not occupied by running water.
When excavated, the moat appears to be about 30 m
wide, but not very deep. While the outer bank is smooth,
the inner is steep, in the shape of a slope (glacis) obtained in
remodelling the fringe of the fluvial ridge on which the
village was built, and is lined by a V-shaped ditch (Fig. 11).
Surprisingly, its bottom has been found riddled with pits.
On a surface of 1500 m2—which has been unearthed up to
now—30 pits have been found. Some are clustered and
interconnected and may represent hydraulic systems to
distribute the water at the outer part of the terramara.
Most of them are water wells: they are about 2.5 m deep,
and reach a sandy aquifer, which lies 5 m under the
topographic base of the site—this means 2 m deeper than
the wells in the enclosure. The fill of these wells is generally
rather homogeneous, clayey in texture and poor in organic
matter, and it includes very scarce archaeological material.
The wells appear to have been excavated in a very short
time. In two cases, they are interconnected, and in this case,
the deepest well is also the last to have been dug, indicating
that they were frequently re-excavated with the purpose of
following the descending water table’s fringe (Fig. 12).
The archaeological material, while scarce, is rather
significant, as it consists exclusively of sherds dating back
to the final phase of the Recent Bronze age. It can be
concluded, therefore, that the wells inside the moat were
dug when those of the palisade were already deactivated:
Fig. 9. Santa Rosa terramara (RE). The DTM (Digital Terrain Model) of the southern fringe of the Villaggio Grande after the 2004 field season. The
palisade is interrupted by the gate which is 4 m large. Notice the wells in correspondence with the fringe of the village and inside the moat. Darker shadow
corresponds to deeper areas (survey C. Putzolu).
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they might reflect the need to reach a deeper aquifer as the
upper ones might have been exhausted.
5. A dry episode at the end of the Santa Rosa terramara
To understand better the environmental meaning of the
event which led to the deactivation of the wells on the
fringe, the whole hydrographic system of the terramara has
to be taken into consideration (Fig. 13).
The Po river, ever neighbouring the site when it was
active, was the main source for the aquifers feeding the
terramara. The maximum depth reached by the water wells
found in the Villaggio Piccolo (Cremaschi and Bernabò
Fig. 10. Santa Rosa terramara (RE). The well US 2206 carries the rising
water trough a ditch to some cisterns excavated inside the moat. (1) Limit
of the excavated area (field season 2000), (2) contour of well, (3) scarp and
(4) post hole. Numbers and letters at the margin of the drawing indicate
the reference grid of the excavation, the figures inside the drawing
denominate the stratigraphic units.
Brea, 2004) and by those of the Villaggio Grande is almost
the same. The wells in the moat, on the contrary, reached
about 2 m deeper. This means that the level of the water
table was almost stable throughout the Middle Bronze age
and the Recent Bronze age (a time interval about three
centuries long), but it dropped abruptly during the final
phase of the village, in the late Recent Bronze age (in a time
interval less than 50 years long). As this event cannot be
attributed to a river avulsion, due to the fact that the Po
river during the Bronze age was deeply entrenched inside
the plain (Cremaschi, 2004), the drop of water tables has to
be attributed to a depletion of the river flow, consequent to
a dry event which reduced precipitation rate and water
availability. As the local level of the water tables is strictly
connected with the flow of the Po river, which is the main
hydrological collector of a considerable part of northern
Italy, the dry event observed in Poviglio is likely to have
had a regional relevance.
In the whole alpine region, there is evidence of a dry
phase during this period. Drop in lake levels is recorded in
the Garda region at Lago Lucone (Valsecchi et al., 2006).
Lake level falls are also recorded in the Swiss plateau and
in the Jura mountains (Magny and Richoz,1998; Magny,
2004; Holzhauser et al., 2005). During this period, the
alpine glaciers were in a short withdrawal phase (Rothlisberger, 1986). A dry event at 3100 cal yr BP is not in
contrast with the palaeoclimatic record from ice cores of
Greenland. A well-pronounced peak is recorded in the melt
water diagram of the Agassiz Ice Cap core (Fisher and
Koerner, 2003) and a negative peak of delta O18 can be
seen in the GISP and GRIP cores (Dansgaard et al., 1993;
Meese, et al., 1994). They both indicate a period with
higher temperatures which may have resulted in enhanced
aridity at middle latitudes.
The end of the occupation of the Santa Rosa site is
contemporary with the general abandonment of the
terramare. As the drought documented at the site had a
regional extension, there is a clear contiguity between these
two events, and we may assume a causative link between
them (abandonment of the terramare and dry event) and
infer that the climatic event may have acted as a catalyst to
promote the abandonment of the terramare. In order to
explain how a climatic event, quite minor in the frame of
the Holocene climatic change, may nonetheless have
Fig. 11. Santa Rosa terramara (RE). The moat surrounding the village during the field season 2003. Notice the pits excavated in its bottom.
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Fig. 12. Santa Rosa terramara (RE) Three interconnected wells inside the moat. (a) Plan and (b) DTM. Notice that the later well (US 6133) is also the
deepest one (survey C. Putzolu).
Fig. 13. Cross section N-S of the terramara Santa Rosa (RE). Comparison between the water table levels during the Middle Bronze age and the final
Recent Bronze age as indicated by the water wells depth. (1) Position of the cross section in the site map, (2) sand layers holding acquifers, (3) fluvial
deposits (laminate sand/silt) of the Po palaeochannel, (4) shifting level of the water table: light-grey Middle and Recent Bronze age; dark-grey late Recent
Bronze age and (5) the depth of the wells of the terramara.
contributed to and probably determined the collapse of a
well-settled cultural system, we should understand that it
saddled an environment already stressed by human
exploitation. Several years of drought may have acted
negatively on the basic sources of food, reducing soil
fertility and rendering the feeding and watering of animals
extremely difficult. A limit may have been reached, beyond
which there was no possible answer to the demand for
resources by a rising population, and the area became
unsuitable for life and was rapidly abandoned.
6. Conclusive remarks
As far as the management of the environment is
concerned, the terramare culture represented a unique
experiment, though unsuccessful, in the context of the
European Bronze age. In contrast, with a tendency toward
decline in all the regions of Europe (Berger et al., 2000), the
culture of the terramare produced a systematic and
intensive exploitation of the environment, quite early for
northern Italy. Intensive agriculture, pastoralism and the
architecture of the sites, demanding large amounts of
wood, were made possible by heavy deforestation of the
whole Po plain, rendering it an artificial steppe devoted to
cereal crops.
Water was a critical resource, strictly linked to the
primary economy. The moats surrounding most of the sites
were probably conceived to concentrate water and redistribute it to the surrounding country through a network of
irrigation ditches. The hydraulic system discovered at the
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fringe of the terramara of Santa Rosa, consisting of large
water wells and interconnecting ditches, suffered a clear
drop in the water table level during the late Recent Bronze
age, and in the final phase of the occupation of the site
coincided with the abandonment of all the sites in the
terramare region.
The hydrological crisis recorded at Santa Rosa is the
local expression of a regional dry event which is also
recorded in the Alpine area and beyond, in the North
Atlantic area.
The chronological contiguity, supported by the archaeological context, between the collapse of the terramare
system and the dry episode recorded in Poviglio, suggests a
causative link between the two events.
The period of dry climate affected an environment
already stressed by over-exploitation of natural resources
by a large demographic increase, and its consequences on
the sources of the primary economy (soils and livestock)
may have rendered the area unsuitable for living and
caused its abandonment.
The case of the terramara rise the question of the role of
short climatic changes in societal collapse which appears to
have been a primary agent in several cases from the
Mediterranean area, Middle East and meso-America over
the Holocene (Weiss, 2000; De Menocal, 2001; Weiss and
Bradley, 2001; Catto and Catto, 2004).
The present research confirms a multi-causal explanation
for the terramare disappearance, in which the climatic
component, after the recent discovery in Santa Rosa,
appears likely to have played a role. Nevertheless, the main
factor still remains the environmental stress induced by
anthropogenic over-exploitation of resources and uncontrolled demographic pressure. This interpretation is further
supported by the fact that in the areas surrounding the
terramare, which were marginal during the apogee, the
civilisation (specifically the Apennine and the Veneto
plain), there was no break in occupation and the local
cultures of the Final Bronze age overcame the crisis which
was fatal to the terramare (Bernabò Brea et al., 1997; Bietti
Sestieri, 1997).
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