The PI (Principal Investigator) of CoPOWER, Dr Elisa Perego, has built a database of dozens of marginal burials from selected regions of late prehistoric Europe (Bronze and Iron Age, second and first millennia BC). She has developed a framework for identifying and assessing such evidence, with the aim of shedding new light on the life histories of socially excluded individuals in the past. This work builds on her long-term research on social exclusion in later prehistory, resulting in the Archaeology of Marginality approach. The analytical framework includes the combined application of paleopathological, taphonomic, aDNA and multi-isotope (strontium, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen) analyses to human skeletal remains. State-of-the-art medical research on trauma, nutrition and gene-environment interactions is also being integrated into the available bioarchaeological data. Dr Perego has also started to apply the Bioarchaeology of Care approach to evidence of disability in her sample.
The marginality approach is currently being applied by Dr Perego to a sample of c.20 potentially marginalised inhumation burials from the Late Bronze Age hub of Frattesina, Italy. The Frattesina case study features a collaboration with several Italian colleagues, such as Dr Cavazzuti (bioarchaeology and isotope analysis), Dr Interlando (paleopathology), Dr Ferrante (strontium isotope analysis) and Prof. Lubritto (nitrogen, carbon and oxygen analysis). Collaborations with top aDNA labs are currently being developed.
Dr Perego and CoPOWER collaborator Dr Scopacasa shed new light on human-environment interaction in Italy c. 1000-200 BC, with a focus on the consequences of climate change and natural disaster on marginal and vulnerable human groups. They have proven that environmental stress (e.g. flooding) was linked to an increase in ritual violence and the abuse/ marginalisation of some individuals and social segments in the Italian region of Veneto c. 700-500 BC. Ritual violence might have included human sacrifice, or the intentional exploitation and abuse (e.g. dismemberment) of human remains; it was a key feature of ritual practice at the dawn of urban society in Veneto, and possibly in peri-Alpine Europe more in general.
Dr Perego and Dr Scopacasa have also shown that a probable raise of temperature in the south Italian region of Apulia, c. 325-200 BC, did not prevent people (who might have included marginalised/ non-elite groups) to occupy one of the most arid areas of Italy (the Tavoliere and Murge). This case study casts new light on human resilience in the face of climate and social unpredictability at the time of Rome's expansion and growing urbanization in Apulia.
Thanks to a collaboration between Dr Perego and Dr Tamorri, CoPOWER is also the first project in Italian archaeology to use archaeothanatology applied to archival and photographic material; it is also the first project to extensively apply burial taphonomy to marginality research.
Dr Perego, Dr Scopacasa and Dr Tamorri have applied micro-scale contextual analysis, archaeothanatology and the marginality approach to shed new light on child personhood, the life course and social exclusion in the central Italian region of Samnium, as well as in burial sites of later prehistoric and Iron Age Veneto, such as the recently published cemetery of Emo in Padua.
Thanks to a collaboration with Dr Rebay-Salisbury, PI on the ERC-funded VAMOS project, Dr Perego is applying the marginality approach to motherhood research in late prehistoric Europe. As of June 2019, CoPOWER has produced one Twitter account, one co-edited volume on collapse and marginality in the ancient Mediterranean (in press), four book chapters (in press), one journal article on human-environment interaction in Apulia (published in 2018 in Humanities, with Dr R. Scopacasa), two articles in journal issues/ volumes (one published in 2018 with Dr R. Scopacasa, one in review), 10 conference or workshop talks, 4 Twitter talks, 2 posters, 3 workshops (2 in 2018 and one forthcoming at TAG UCL 2019), a Twitter session, and partecipations at public events such as the Long Night of Science in Vienna. Numerous other talks and papers are in preparation.
