Archaeobotany of urban sites: the macro (seeds, fruits, wood) and microremains (pollen, charcoal particles, NPPs) from Mutina – Roman Age, northern Italy.

Recent drillings of cores taken from the town of Modena (Emilia Romagna, northern Italy) have permitted to reconstruct the Holocene vegetation history of this areas based on pollen, charcoal particles and non pollen palynomorphs. Radiocarbon datings, TOC and lito-stratigraphical analyses were carried out. The cores include layers referring to the Roman period that saw the foundation of the town (183 BC). Contextually, a large set of investigations on archaeobotany of archaeological sites of Roman age (2nd century BC – 6th century AD) have been studied for macro and microremains. The set of the very well-preserved plant records and the high number of off-site and on-site locations studied in the same town give firm data for a detailed reconstruction of the urban environment. This is one further proof of the great interest that these integrated research of archaeobotany of urban sites has to understand history and ecology of modern cities. Current and past biodiversity, land use and relationship between on-site and extra-urban environments, palaeoethnobotanical features and traditional uses of plants are only part of the issues that can be inferred from these studies.