Excavating the Roman peasant II: excavations at Case Nuove, Cinigiano (GR)

This report details the survey, excavations and materials analysis carried out at Case Nuove (GR) in Tuscany, a site identified by surface survey as a possible rural house, but which excavation and materials analysis suggest was a small-scale agro-processing point of late Republican date. Through accompanying analysis of pollen and land-use data, the article considers the problems this type of site — the stand-alone agro-processing point — presents for interpretations of the Roman landscape. The survey, excavations and materials analysis of Case Nuove revealed a small- scale agro-processing site, serving perhaps as a collective processing point for local farmers but controlled, at least in part, by a local villa. While only a single site in a complex landscape, it is hoped that the results from Case Nuove illuminate the importance of productive and processing activities as components of Roman landscapes and the embeddedness of such activities in their locale, that is, not only in the plant and physical landscapes, but also in the social complex formed by near (and far) human settlement.