4.6 Metadata: data categories

Archive: An archaeological database of higher-order settlements on the Italian peninsula (350 BCE to 300 CE)

Based on the completed design, the database contains the following geographical and archaeological information for each settlement (where available or applicable):

• Identifier: ancient and modern toponyms.
• Georeferenced location (exact latitude and longitude of centre of settlement; height above sea level).
• Degree of confidence in georeferenced location.
• Degree to which the settlement is covered by modern conurbation.
• If the settlement is believed to have replaced another or was replaced by another (e.g. Falerii Veteres/Falerii Novi), and how quickly this occurred.
• If the settlement is hypothesised to have been dependent upon another (e.g. port-town serving a larger settlement).
• If the settlement was polycentric and the chronology of the polycentrism.
• Earliest and latest dates of occupation determined by material evidence if available, or by textual evidence if not.
• If the settlement occupied the site of an earlier abandoned settlement; if so, then the chronology of the earlier settlement is noted.
• Archaeologically identified moments of destruction and periods of abandonment and their chronologies.
• If the settlement is considered to have been permanently, seasonally or occasionally occupied.
• Incomplete urbanisation: whether an author specifically states that unbuilt areas existed within the boundary of the settlement.
• Whether the boundary of the settlement is: apparent from the (near) complete survival of fortifications; only partly known; hypothetically reconstructed; unclear or unknown.
• Surface-area size in hectares. Expansions and reductions in size and their chronologies.
• Dispersed settlement: chronology of recognised periods during which settlement was non-urban.
• Post-abandonment: if there are indications of a low level (rural) occupation of the site after it is judged no longer to have functioned as a nucleated settlement.
• Topographical defence (elevated location/water course/combination/none).
• State of preservation of fortifications.
• Chronology of fortifications, including repair/reconstruction phases.
• Character and chronology of orthogonal street system, including replanning actions.
• Character and chronology of monumental architecture and public spaces from archaeological or epigraphic evidence (forum/agora; intramural monumental temple; architectural assembly place; theatre; amphitheatre, basilica, bath complex).
• Proximity to Roman roads in the Barrington Atlas (on; near; far).
• If the settlement possessed facilities for loading/unloading waterborne vessels ('approdo').
• Is the site in Pleiades at the moment accessed? Y/N

Information derived from ancient textual sources and published interpretations thereof.

• The name(s) of the pre-Roman people(s) associated with the site in 350 BCE or later.
• The name(s) of pre-Roman peoples associated with the site prior to 350 BCE.
• Upper and lower dates of the period during which the people of the local area came under Roman dominion.
• Character and chronology of Roman-assigned legal status (colonia, civitas sine suffragio, civitas optimo iure, municipium, foedus, praefectura, conciliabulum, vicus) and changes to it over time, keeping distinct those supported directly by ancient textual evidence and those that are hypothesised in publications.
• Is it in the list of Italian towns provided by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder? Y/N
• Augustan region in which site is located (I to IX).

Data relevant to each of these categories were documented when encountered in publications and entered into the database. The database should not, however, be considered as a completely comprehensive record of information in relation to these categories for each site. For example, published statements that a settlement had unbuilt areas within its perimeter were documented in relation to 44 sites, but this does not necessarily mean that the other 539 were fully built up. The fragmentary nature of the archaeological and ancient textual record should always be borne in mind when analysing the patterns produced by the database: none of the sites it contains have been completely excavated.

Usually only small areas of archaeological sites are excavated in relation to their overall size, but the data they provide are still generally employed by authors to interpret the history of the entire settlement. As a result, some of the database's categories are more robust than others. Those that record the physical presence of archaeological features are likely to be the most robust, especially as the database documents particularly monumental, and thus more easily recognisable, elements such as fortifications and public buildings. Chronological information is more interpretative (see below). Doubt is often expressed by authors in relation to periods of occupation that produce little archaeological material: does this reflect lower intensity of activity (e.g. decreased population or lower production and consumption of material goods) or abandonment? If such uncertainty is expressed by an author, the database records continued occupation as a default. Only in cases when authors specifically state that a site was abandoned is this entered into the database as such (for the widespread downturn in occupation levels of settlements in many areas of the peninsula during the later 5th and early 4th centuries BCE, see Sewell forthcoming).