Research: From archaeological data to social structure: communities, economies, and cultures in the italian Copper Age
I am Annamaria Daniele, a PhD candidate in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology (40th Cycle) at Sapienza University of Rome, where I obtained both my Master's Degree in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology and my Bachelor's Degree in Archaeological Sciences with honours. During my university studies, my research focused on funerary practices, as well as social and territorial organisation, in central-southern Tyrrhenian Italy between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.
Currently, my PhD project aims to analyse funerary rituals in peninsular Italy between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC (Italian Copper Age), with the objective of outlining similarities and differences in funerary behaviours among groups belonging to the same or different cultural horizons.
Specifically, I investigate funerary practices, criteria for access to burial sites (such as necropolises, caves, and settlements), and the ways the deceased were represented according to sex and age. I pay close attention to the logic behind the spatial organisation of tombs, the identification of potential emerging figures, and any diachronic changes in these practices. To achieve these goals, I adopt an approach that combines diachronic and inter-regional investigations through statistical analyses applied to archaeology. From a methodological perspective, I utilise a relational database, which I structured and populated by cataloguing published literature, to manage and cross-reference spatial, anthropological, and typological data, integrating them with radiocarbon dating and biomolecular analyses (DNA and isotopes) when available.
Alongside my doctoral research, I actively participate in numerous archaeological fieldworks. Since 2022, I have been collaborating with the Italian Archaeological Mission in Malta, focusing on the study of ceramic materials from the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Tas-Silġ sanctuary. In Italy, I have taken part in excavation campaigns and surveys in highly significant contexts, including the Bronze Age settlement of Coppa Nevigata (Foggia), the Neolithic context of Grotta Battifratta (Rieti), and the protohistoric settlements of Cannatello (Agrigento) and Monte Croce-Guardia (Ancona), in addition to contributing to the fieldwork of the Alta Murgia Archaeological Project.
The results of my research are regularly presented at international conferences and published as scientific articles in specialised journals.