Dal sedimento al terreno. Problemi di invisibilità del materiale ceramico e delle pratiche storiche in un insediamento rurale altomedievale (Geridu, SS)

This contribution deals with the study of a ‘marginal’ site, within the site of the abandoned medieval village of Geridu (SS), which has seen numerous excavation campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s (resumed in winter 2023). This marginality is to be understood in the twofold topographical sense, since it is an area peripheral to the village, and in the temporal sense, since the stratigraphic sequence here has brought to light the existence of presumably early medieval phases of life, scarcely documented in the rest of the site but partially recognisable on the basis of the materials found during the survey as well as in historical documents. A central element of the reflection around this case study are the concepts of “formation processes” and “construction of the archaeological source”, in relation above all to the types of materials and the literature produced around them, but also to the interpretative categories deduced or borrowed from the historical (or rather, historiographical) source. The different registers originating on the one hand from surface investigations and on the other from the archaeological excavation (and its stratigraphic sequence, through the ‘filter’ of the materials, mainly ceramic, that both types of investigation have returned) are thus compared. In particular, the question of the ‘recognisability’ of certain practices, activities and chronologies from the archaeological patterns revealed by the survey is addressed. The idea is that sometimes the Harrisian stratigraphic method constitutes a sort of methodological self-confinement (and at the same time a comfort zone) for the archaeologist, keeping him/her from going beyond a simple collection-classificatory method based on the two pillars of stratigraphy and materials.