"Marrying in and eating out" : mobility, food and social dynamics in Bronze Age Southern Italy : trace element analysis at Sant'Abbondio (Pompeii, Naples)

Abstract

This thesis uses multi-elemental Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) trace element analysis of human bone and dental enamel from the Middle Bronze Age cemetery of Sant’Abbondio (Pompeii, Naples) to explore the socio-economic dynamics of Italian Bronze Age groups.

Taking Salvatore Puglisi’s idea as a starting point, the use of trace element data is directed towards the identification of patterns of mobility in relation to transhumant pastoralism and marriage exchanges, believed to characterise Bronze Age patrilineal society.  Mobility is seen to represent the praxis through which economic and social practices can be expressed and is examined via food consumption through its ability to describe the relationship between humans and the environment.  The consumption of foodstuffs related to a specific environment is detectable through the elemental concentration of the human tissues. 

The identification of patterns of consumption allows thus the definition of locality in its specific meaning of place where resources are gathered and/or produced.  Food can also act as a vehicle used to express the habitus, and is investigated as a means through which individual and collective identity is defined in Italian prehistory.

The identification of patterns of mobility and food consumption, through the use of bone chemistry, offers the change to develop more complex interpretations through an innovative methodological approach.  New ideas are proposed in terms of gender and social identity for the Bronze Age of Italy.

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