The Oscan Fringe: Research Agendas for the Ancient Central-South Apennines.
An international workshop at the University of Exeter, 11-12 September 2007.
The need to bridge the divide between History and Archaeology has become particularly clear in the study of the ancient central-south Apennines, where more holistic and alternative histories are beginning to be written by combining the information in ancient literary accounts with a growing body of archaeological and epigraphic data. Better articulation between recent contributions is essential for the development of the field, especially by evaluating how the latest archaeological finds and approaches to texts and material culture are being used to continue developing the themes of community transformations in the central-south Apennines.
The aim of this workshop is to bring together historians and archaeologists with the latest contributions to the study of the ancient central Apennines, in order to establish dialogue, systematize an updated view of the current state of knowledge and envisage major lines of research, with special attention to the building of more coherent theoretical and methodological frameworks for linking History and Archaeology. This is particularly important since the time lag for publishing the archaeological material can be 10 to 20 years. Furthermore, the last three years have seen a resurgence of archaeological projects after more than a decade of inactivity due to economic and political issues in the regions. Hence an update on the current state of the archaeology is essential. The impact of milestone projects such as archaeological surveys in the Biferno Valley (Barker et al., 1995) are still very much felt, and a pause to review where we are now is timely.
The key speakers from Italy, Brazil, Australia and the UK will be: Angela Di Niro, Marlene Suano, Martin Sterrey, Gennaro Tarasco, Edward Bispham, Nikoletta Farkas, Amy Richardson, Luigi Scaroina, Rafael Scopacasa, Gabriella Colucci-Pescatori, Vincenzo Di Giovanni, Amalia Faustoferri, Robyn Veal, Gianfranco De Benedittis, Elena Isayev.
Since the papers are intended to act as catalysts for discussion we very much welcome all who are interested in participating.
The first session will start at 11:30 on Tuesday 11 September and the last session will end at 14:30 on Wednesday 12 September. For more information please consult the detailed schedule at the end of this message.
There is no workshop fee but we would still like you to register by sending an email to: e.isayev@exeter.ac.uk simply indicating if you will be attending the whole workshop or just one day. Lunch will be provided on both days for those who have registered.
