Coppa Nevigata is an archaeological site in the

province of Foggia The Province of Foggia ( it, Provincia di Foggia ; Foggiano: ) is a province in the Apulia (Puglia) region of southern Italy. This province is also known as Daunia, after the Daunians, an Iapygian pre-Roman tribe living in Tavoliere plain, an ...

, southern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, southwest of

Manfredonia Manfredonia is a town and commune of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Foggia, from which it is northeast by rail. Manfredonia is situated on the coast, facing east, to the south of Monte Gargano, and gives its name to the gulf to the east of ...

, on the Apulian coast of the Gargano peninsula. The earliest human presence on the site, which was situated on the edge of a coastal

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

, with easy access to the sea and numerous natural resources, dates back to the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

, between the 7th and 5th millennia BC. At a later date, a settlement of the final Neolithic period continued into the Bronze Age; occupation at the site is attested for the Protoapennine, Apennine, and Subapennine phases of the Italian Bronze Age. During the Bronze Age, a significant settlement arose that had contacts with the civilizations of the Aegean; these contacts are most visible during the Subapennine phase, when fragments of Mycenaean ceramics are found at the site. From the beginning of the Protoapennine phase, there is evidence for the extraction of purple dye from

murex ''Murex'' is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. These are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, commonly called "murexes" or "rock snails".Houart, R.; Gofas, S. (2010). Murex Linnaeus, 175 ...

shells and for pressing of olives to extract olive oil. The purple dye production, starting around 1800 BC, is the earliest yet attested in Italy. This dye production increased through the 14th century BC, but sharply dropped off by the 12th century in the Subapennine phase. Some areas near the fortifications and on the shore of the lagoon were dedicated both to the processing and storage of

cereals A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grain crops are grown in greater quantities and provide more food ...

and to the extraction of purple dye; these activities were later moved within the settlement. The site was defended by

dry stone Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction m ...

fortification walls. The site is currently under periodic excavation by a team from

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a public research university located in Rome, Ita ...

, under the direction of Alberto Cazzella.

Bibliography

* P. Boccuccia, "Ricerche nell'area sud-orientale di Coppa Nevigata," in ''Taras,'' 15 (1995), pp. 153–174. * S.M. Cassano, A. Cazzella, A. Manfredini, M. Moscoloni (eds.), ''Coppa Nevigata e il suo territorio'', Rome 1987. * A. Cazzella, "L'insediamento di Coppa Nevigata fra tarda età del Bronzo ed età del Ferro," in ''Archeologia Classica'', 43 (1991), pp. 39–53. * A. Cazzella, "La Puglia come area periferica del mondo miceneo: il caso di Coppa Nevigata," in ''Atti del II Convegno Internazionale di Studi Micenei'', Rome-Naples 1996, pp. 1543–1549. * A. Cazzella, M. Moscoloni, "La sequenza cronostratigrafica di Coppa Nevigata fra XVI e XIV secolo a.C.," in ''Rassegna di Archeologia'', 10 (1992), pp. 533–543. * G. Siracusano, "Le indagini archeozoologiche nel sito stratificato di Coppa Nevigata: una visione d'insieme," in ''Origini'', 15 (1992), pp. 201–217

External links

"Coppa Nevigata - Testimonianze archeologiche dal VII al II millennio avanti Cristo"
*Cazzella, Alberto & Maurizio Moscoloni. 1998. "Coppa Nevigata: un insediamento fortificato dell'eta del Bronzo," in Luciana Drago Troccoli (ed.), ''Scavi e ricerche archeologiche dell'Università di Roma La Sapienza''
pp. 178-183
*Cazzella, Alberto ''et al''. 2004. "L’insediamento dell’età del Bronzo di Coppa Nevigata (Foggia) e la più antica attestazione della produzione della porpora in Italia," ''Preistoria Alpina'' Supplement 1, v. 40
pp. 177-182.
''This article contains material translated from the equivalent article in the Italian Wikipedia.'' {{Coord, 41.5581, N, 15.8339, E, source:wikidata, display=title Geography of Apulia Archaeological sites in Apulia Prehistoric sites in Italy Province of Foggia