Studi e ricerche

Un approccio archeometrico per determinare l’origine dei manufatti in pietra ollare

Un’analisi delle potenzialità, criticità e sviluppi futuri

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Abstract

Pietra ollare identified a raw material mined in the Alps that was used for the widespread production of cookware and dishware in the Early Middle Ages. One of its distinctive characteristics is a close association between mineralogy and provenance that can be exploited to determine the origin of archaeological specimens. Consequently, pietra ollare appears as a proxy for reconstructing the ancient trading networks. To this aim, we did an in-depth census of the Early Middle Ages pietra ollare findings in North Italy, and we elaborated an archaeometric approach to determine the origin of the artifacts. This contribution presents the protocol and discusses its potentialities, criticalities, and future developments.


open access | peer reviewed

Submitted: June 9, 2025 | Accepted: Oct. 9, 2025 | Published March 5, 2026 | Language: it

Keywords Early Middle Ages economy • Pietra ollare • Raman spectroscopy • Mineralogical analysis • Machine learning • X-ray fluorescence

Copyright © 2026 Elisa Maccadanza, Fabio Brugnara, Fabio Saggioro, Marco Zanatta. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/979-12-5742-002-4/006


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