Drama in the Roman countryside: Marzuolo Archaeological Project

In the second half of the 1st century BC, Marzuolo was installed as one of many small sites that were part of a wave of rural development. As a small rural center, Marzuolo hosted craftspeople and farmers and catered to the demand for foodstuffs, tools, and services of the surrounding population. Our multi-year, intensive archaeological investigations have shown that the picture of uneventful rural life is a figment of the historical imagination that glosses over the many turns, shifts, events – in short, the drama – of the Roman countryside. This lecture provides a glimpse of this rural drama: a wine business gone wrong; a smithy that burnt down; a potter trying and failing to do something new. In the process, it reflects on archaeological methodology and on the importance of reconstructing human lives on the big stage of history.