The First Archaeologists of Poggio Gramignano: Evidence of a Pre-Roman Settlement and the Romans Who Discovered It

Abstract The archaeological site of Poggio Gramignano, a prominent hilltop located near the southern Umbrian village of Lugnano in Teverina (TR), is well-known for the Augustan villa and the late antique infant and child cemetery found along the hill’s southwest corner. Recent fieldwork, however, has brought to light surprising new discoveries that reveal a more ancient history at Poggio Gramignano, extending the evidence for occupation back into the Orientalizing and Archaic periods. Excavation of the cemetery space has uncovered deposits that contain abundant pre-Roman artifactual material. What is more, excavation of these deposits has revealed a remarkable stratigraphic relationship between Poggio Gramignano’s pre-Roman and Roman phases which suggests that the Roman builders who constructed the villa in the late 1st century BCE were in fact archaeologists of sorts themselves, having been the first to discover and interact with archaeological material from Poggio Gramignano’s pre-Roman era. In this article we first describe in detail the pre-Roman deposits and diagnostic material uncovered. We also report the recent findings of a possible a pre-Roman necropolis located near to Poggio Gramignano. Based on these findings, we offer preliminary conclusions, hypothesizing that Poggio Gramignano was once a settlement of a pre-Roman community of a hybrid culture group, possibly one with ties to the ancient Umbrian urban center of Ameria. In addition, we discuss the significance of the stratigraphic relationship between the pre-Roman and Roman phases in terms of archaeological memory, suggesting that a through-line may exist for Poggio Gramignano as a lived place.