Larinum
In Roman times, Larinum was a thriving and large settlement of ancient origin, located in the hills of the hinterland at an altitude of about 400 m, not far from the coast of the Adriatic Sea, of considerable importance due to its strategic location: it stretched over a large, fertile and flat area, in a strategic position, overlooking the valley floor and the lower course of the Biferno river, and it was also an important road junction, as it was located at the convergence of important road axes, which allowed profitable trade exchanges.
These particular geographical features, together with the favourable climate and the fertility of the soil, which was easy to cultivate, explain the prosperity and economic development of Larinum, which already reached its peak in the 3rd century BC. This made it a frontier town and a crossroads of cultures, between the Adriatic coast and the inland area of Samnium, always open to the influences of different cultural environments, as confirmed by the archaeological remains, which attest to the existence of a rich and populous town even before the Punic Wars.
The territory
The city was located along the so-called via litoranea, an ancient road that from the north descended along the Adriatic to Histonium and then, by an inland route, after passing Larino, proceeded eastward to Sipontum and continued, again along the coast, to Brindisi; this great artery of communication was called Traiana Frentana, an appellation derived from a sepulchral inscription of a certain Marco Blavio, who was one of the curatores of the road connecting Ancona to Brindisi. Moreover, Larinum, through the Biferno valley floor, easily connected with the inland area of Pentrian Samnium, in the direction of Bovianum, and by grafting onto the route of the Celano-Foggia sheep-track easily entered into communication with northern Daunia, in the direction of Luceria. This dense network of routes defined, therefore, an extensive territory, a crossroads of cultures of various origins, a land of passages and settlements, but always in relationship with neighboring peoples, in a mutual relationship of cultural exchange.The geomorphological investigations carried out in the territory of Larino have shown how this territory has proven, since time immemorial, to be propitious both for the choice of inhabited settlements and for the construction of roadways. In fact, the reserves of clay and, to a lesser extent, limestone, present locally, suitable for exploitation in the furnaces, facilitated in ancient times the construction of masonry works, together with the presence of abundant river stones, easily available due to the proximity of the Cigno and Biferno rivers.
Moreover, the territorial framework of the ancient Frentania, to which Larino belonged, represented the least impervious area of the entire Samnium, since it included the hilly strip, easily passable, sloping toward the Adriatic Sea, consisting of arenaceous and clayey soils that were drained to the narrow, flat coastline. Encompassed between the Sangro, to the north, and the Fortore, to the south, the Frentanian region was rich in rivers from the inland Apennine areas and minor watercourses, whose valleys represented natural and easy communication routes between the coast and the interior. In addition to the main road system, the area was also served by a series of secondary routes, which constituted a dense network of communications, into which large and small settlements were inserted, able to connect with each other easily. It is assumed that the river courses themselves were used as easy routes between the coast and inland areas, since some ancient sources, in defining portuosum flumen both the Trigno and the Fortore, suggest the existence of port activities in that stretch of the Adriatic coast.
Therefore, the morphological configuration, the abundance of water, the decidedly mild climate, the presence of a widespread forest vegetation on the hills, and the wide network of sheep-tracks, running parallel to the coast, favored the life and economy of the local populations in pre-Roman times, encouraging forms of settlement and organization of the territory. Larinum is currently an archaeological site in the province of Campobasso, Molise, Italy.
In 2016, the archaeological area had 1,566 visitors. Admission is free.
History
A systematic archaeological exploration of Samnium is a relatively recent initiative, as it was started in the early 1970s and gradually increased in the following decades. The earliest records of collections of prehistoric material of various Molisian provenance are available through surface surveys carried out beginning in 1876 by anthropologist Giustiniano Nicolucci and palethnologist Luigi Pigorini. The latter wrote in that very year complaining of a great poverty of information about the Stone Age in the province of Molise. It consists of eight knives from Larino, a scraper and two knives from Casacalenda and a knife from Montorio nei Frentani. Currently, the material found is partly preserved at the Luigi Pigorini National Prehistoric Ethnographic Museum in Rome and partly at the Anthropological Museum of the University of Naples Federico II.Subsequently, it was to the credit of the British mission of the University of Sheffield and the team led by archaeologist Graeme Barker, to have conducted a capillary surface reconnaissance, started in 1974, along the wide strip of territory that constitutes the Biferno Valley, which from the Matese massif reaches the sea, following the course of the Tifernus. Systematic land sampling has led to the identification of about one hundred and twenty ancient settlements of various sizes, covering a period from the Neolithic to the first century B.C. Barker's analysis of the results of the survey offers a picture of an intense peopling of the Frentanian territory gravitating on the lower Biferno valley, where 60 percent of the identified inhabited settlements turn out to be located. Settlement choices seem to be dictated not only by the need to exploit the sites most favorable to cultivation, but also by the intention to keep close to natural communication routes.
Through Barker's survey, the main information on the nature of early Neolithic settlements located along the Biferno valley is available, particularly of the most substantial one identified on Monte Maulo, a vast plateau below Larino, overlooking the lower Biferno valley, at the edge of a promontory about 20 km. from the sea as the crow flies. Inspection of the site, explored in 1978, led to the discovery of several species of mollusks and snails; 146 charred seeds were recovered, mainly cereals and legumes, and numerous samples of animal bones, mostly slaughtered. The excavation conducted at the top of the slope, among the plowed soil, recovered about 1,500 sherds of common pottery, mostly decorated, and about 200 pieces of chipped flint, almost all of a local stone of poor quality. Radiocarbon dates, obtained in an Oxford laboratory, date from the second half of the fifth millennium BCE. Thus, the botanical and faunal records appearing in the area confirm that early agricultural communities were present in the lower Biferno Valley as early as the late fifth millennium B.C. The site has also yielded traces of human habitation, consisting of a series of circular holes, probably dug to recover flint, filled with ceramic fragments, and structural remains of Neolithic huts. The data from Monte Maulo make it possible to reconstruct the paleoenvironment of this small part of Molise; they confirm that as early as the Early Neolithic period a mixed economy of gathering and farming was in force, with prevalence of the latter, given the variety of botanical remains found, both cereals and legumes, as well as the numerous faunal remains, relating to animals raised, slaughtered and consumed on site.
Between 1969 and 1989, an accurate study conducted by Eugenio De Felice on the settlement of Larinum and the territory surrounding the ancient Frentanian center further enriched what is known about the early phases of occupation of this area. It has thus been possible to identify a number of Neolithic Age agricultural villages distributed throughout the territory, thanks to the numerous finds of ceramic fragments and remains of lithic industry, settlements mostly located on hilly heights and near water sources. Ceramic and bronze material, referable to the late Bronze Age - early Iron Age, has been found in various places at Montarone and Guardiola, two heights bordering to the south and north the ancient settlement of Larino, suitable for the settlement of humans and animals, well connected to both the Biferno valley floor and the coastal plain.
Although of very ancient origin, as evidenced by sporadic finds dating from the Final Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, the first significant evidence of living contexts of the city of Larino starts from the fifth century B.C.; these are mostly burial cores, often not even perfectly intact, since, due to building expansion and massive earthworks carried out for the construction of the railroad, much has been destroyed and very little remains to be explored.
Even the evidence of the Roman phase, the one best known, is currently in an extremely fragmentary state. Also of particular interest for the reconstruction of Larinum's history are the coins and epigraphic texts that have been found, references that are also useful for an understanding of the scant archaeological evidence recovered in the different areas of its urban fabric. However, these data significantly reveal continuity of life in the area as far back as protohistoric times.
From the very beginning, in 1977, the first archaeological investigation tests, initially carried out by the Soprintendenza Beni Archeologici del Molise along the southern slopes of Monte Arcano, on the hills facing north, ascertained the presence of an archaic necropolis, dating back to the 6th century BCE. B.C. with rectangular burial graves, with mound covers of limestone chippings; the vessel trove almost constantly includes the large olla, bucchero, and clay pottery vessels coarsely imitating Daunian forms. Explorations conducted in other areas as well have revealed, albeit fragmentarily, the presence of a settlement stratification of ancient origin throughout the Larinum countryside, covering a rather wide time span. However, over the years it has only been possible to carry out explorations limited to the areas that remained free of construction, the entire area having by then been abundantly urbanized since the post-war period.
Subsequent archaeological investigations, extended to other municipalities close to the Molise coastal area, found similar presence of burial nuclei, of considerable size, dating back to the pre-Roman historical phase, in the centers of Termoli, Guglionesi, Montorio nei Frentani and Campomarino. In the latter center, in the locality of Arcora, excavations carried out since 1983 have unearthed substantial traces of a protohistoric village, dating between the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, which extended, over an area of about four hectares, along the ridge facing the Adriatic coast, naturally defended on two sides by steep walls; the flat area inland showed clear traces of defense and enclosure structures. Surface reconnaissance attests to a continuous occupation of the site up to the entire fifth century B.C.
In addition to partial ruins of living structures, the site has yielded conspicuous traces of human activities: numerous artifacts of ceramic material, vessels and containers for cooking and storing foodstuffs, utensils and objects of domestic use, hearths and stoves. Numerous bone remains of animals, both domestic and wild, with obvious traces of slaughtering. The amount of seeds recovered during the excavation, both legumes and grains, was remarkable. A community, then, with a simple social organization, living on agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting and gathering wild fruits, as part of a household-based subsistence economy.
Traces of other settlements have been found to the north and south of the Arcora area: it seems clear, therefore, that the Adriatic coast, from the Biferno to the Fortore, was occupied by settlements that exploited the natural platforms separated from the coast by steep and craggy ridges. This evidence from lower Molise documents the existence of numerous scattered settlements, not large, distributed over a fairly wide area and consisting of communities mainly with an agricultural and pastoral vocation. Still in this area the centuries between the 6th and 4th B.C. are known mainly thanks to the conspicuous archaeological documentation from the numerous necropolises, which show a dense occupation of the territory. The grave goods and personal ornaments of the deceased testify to cultural differentiations between the different centers: for example, the coastal settlements show aspects predominantly akin to the Daunian culture; on the contrary, Larino, a frontier town, also has a part in Western culture, coming from the Pentrian and Campanian areas, as shown by the presence in some burials of bucchero pottery, which is completely absent in the contemporary necropolis of Termoli.
In funerary ritual, on the other hand, the entire Frentanian area shows substantial cultural unity, which differentiates it from Daunia, where, for example, the deceased is habitually laid in a crouched position, on his side, and not supine. But beyond this single difference, there is cultural uniformity and substantial continuity between the two areas: between Daunia and Frentania, therefore, the Gargano promontory does not constitute a dividing line; between the Tavoliere and the Molise coast there is an undeniable continuity.
Monetary finds, moreover, also confirm the picture of Larino as a city open to Apulian influences and at the same time important for its connections with inland Samnium: for this reason, even from ancient sources, there was already a certain difficulty in framing Larino in one precise cultural sphere rather than another. Among the various bronze issues, for example, some follow the Greek weight system, in use in the Campanian and Samnite mints, while others, more recent, follow the Italic system, with decimal fractionation, typical of the Adriatic areas.
In the necropolises of lower Molise, in the Archaic period, burials habitually involved the inhumation of the deceased, in a supine position, in pits dug in the clay layer and filled with limestone chippings. It is likely that these stone mounds outcropped from the ancient ground level, marking the location of the grave. The grave goods, laid at the feet of the buried person in a specially made space, usually consisted of small ceramic objects ; metal vessels were rare. In female burials there are objects of personal adornment, in male burials weapons and utensils. Bronze helmets have also been found sporadically, some of the Picenian type, others of the Appulo-Corinthian type, which evidently served to highlight the social rank of the deceased. The grave goods of Frentanian burials from the 6th-5th centuries B.C.E. are usually richer in material than those of the contemporary ones from the inland areas of Samnium. They prove to be mostly uniform in the type of materials deposited.