Research: Building How, Building Why. Archaeological, Dendrochronological and Structural Investigation of Prehistoric Wetland Sites in the Bodensee and Federsee Regions (Baden-Württemberg, Germany) to Explore the Relationships Between Environment, Building Techniques and Cultural Dynamics
PhD candidate in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at Sapienza University of Rome, where she earned both her BA and MA degrees with honours. Her doctoral project focuses on settlement structures in wetland contexts from the Bodensee and Federsee regions (Germany), spanning from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age (4000–850 BCE). The research aims to critically reassess traditional architectural reconstructions of prehistoric pile-dwellings by integrating archaeological evidence, dendrochronological datasets, and structural modelling. The project investigates how environmental and sociocultural variables influenced building techniques and settlement forms and is carried out in collaboration with the research centre of the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege in Hemmenhofen (Baden-Württemberg).
Throughout her academic career, she has consistently specialised in the study of wetland environments. Her BA thesis examined materials from the Villaggio delle Macine (Castel Gandolfo, Rome), curated at the Museo Civico di Albano Laziale. Her MA thesis expanded this focus to a italian scale with some Swiss cases, analysing lacustrine structures through simplified structural calculations and producing a systematic catalogue of architectural elements and "bonifiche". Part of the research was conducted at Bern Universität thanks to the Sapienza “Tesi all’estero” scholarship, and the thesis received in 2025 the Claudio Mocchegiani Carpano Award for the best dissertation on underwater and wetland archaeology.
She has undertaken several Erasmus+ Traineeship programmes at Aix-Marseille Université, the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, and the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege laboratory in Hemmenhofen, where she gained experience in wetland stratigraphic processes, geomorphological and archaeobotanical analysis, the study of ancient wooden structures, and dendrological techniques.
She has participated in numerous archaeological fieldwork projects in prehistoric and protohistoric contexts, including Lucone di Polpenazze (Lake Garda), Frattesina (Veneto), Cannatello (Sicily), Monte di Croce-Guardia (Marche), Coppa Nevigata (Puglia), and Grotta di Battifratta (Lazio), as well as the sites of Pyrgi and Veio in Lazio. In these excavations, she contributed to archaeological documentation, excavation photography, and data management.