Reconstructing the Environment and Topography of the Forum Boarium by Andrea L. Brock A

227 Pages·2017·23.39 MB·English

Rome at Its Core:
Reconstructing the Environment and Topography of the Forum Boarium

by

Andrea L. Brock

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Classical Art and Archaeology)
in the University of Michigan
2017

Doctoral Committee:

Professor Nicola Terrenato, Chair
Professor Elaine Gazda
Dr. Laura Motta
Professor Christopher Ratté
Professor Celia E. Schultz
Andrea L. Brock

[email protected]

ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5390-7499

© 2017 by Andrea L. Brock
To my father,
with whom I spent many happy days on the banks of the Ohio River.

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Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful for the support and assistance provided by numerous people and
institutions. This project would not have been possible without them. I am especially thankful for
the guidance provided by my advisor, Nicola Terrenato, who helped and encouraged me to
actualize even seeming farfetched ideas. Nic gave me the opportunity to pursue my research
interests unfettered and to their fullest extent. I could not have asked for a more supportive
mentor.
Numerous colleagues and friends contributed their time and minds to this project.
Although I reference various collaborative relationships throughout this dissertation, I would like
to acknowledge the participation of Laura Motta and Daniel Diffendale, who made stressful and
perplexing research a far more enjoyable and productive endeavor. I am also grateful for the
students and faculty of the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology, who
provided me with a vigorous learning environment for the past seven years.
Funding for my field research was generously provided by the Etruscan Foundation,
Lemmermann Foundation, and the Horace G. Rackham Graduate School. During the 2015-2016
academic year, I was fortunate to be the Sylvia Engle Graduate Student Fellow at Michigan’s
Institute for the Humanities, an ideal setting as I began to write in earnest. I was supported by a
Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship as I completed this dissertation in 2016-2017.
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Lastly, my biggest debt of gratitude goes to my family, who have supported and
encouraged me through every step of my education. I could not have done this without my
mother (my first teacher and editor) or my husband, Zach (my greatest interlocutor).

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Table of Contents
Dedication ii
Acknowledgments iii
List of Tables viii
List of Figures ix
Abstract xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 - The Historiography of Early Rome: applications and limitations 11
Brief introduction to the historiography of Early Rome 11
Skeptical approach 17
Positivist approach 19
Four case studies 21
Rome’s pre-urban landscape 22
Topography of the Forum Boarium 25
Floods and their effects 29
Human response to flooding 32
Utilizing historical sources in environmental reconstruction: a moderate
positivist approach 33
Conclusions: Interweaving literary, archaeological, and environmental evidence
on Early Rome 38
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Chapter 2 - Human Ecology Theory: elucidating past human-environment
interactions in river valleys 41
Towards an understanding of human-environment relationships 42
Cultural responses to environmental tress 45
Human adaptation to floods 47
Conclusions: some hypotheses for Early Rome 52
Chapter 3 - Digging in the Valley: geoarchaeological methods and data 56
Deep trench excavation at Sant’Omobono 62
Coring survey at Sant’Omobono and in the Forum Boarium 65
Coring survey: stratigraphy, sampling, and chronology 69
Conclusions: implementation in other urban contexts 76
Chapter 4 - Reconstructing the Pre-Urban Landscape of the Forum Boarium
Valley 79
Reconstructing the pre-urban topography of the river valley 82
River channel 86
Raised floodplain 88
Velabrum lowland 90
Hydrology 94
Towards a visualization of the pre-urban landscape 98
The birth of Rome: a hut settlement on the Capitoline Hill 99
Conclusions: envisioning the prehistoric harbor in the Forum Boarium valley 103
Chapter 5 - Urbanizing the Landscape: The development and decline of Rome’s
original river harbor 108
vi
Early Archaic Period: a city rises 109
Construction of Rome’s first harbor temple 111
A new challenge: floods and sedimentation 114
Explaining the sedimentation 115
Late Archaic Period: adaptation and renovation 123
Renovation of the harbor sanctuary 124
Dredging activity 126
Republican Period: maintenance and abandonment of the harbor 130
Conclusions: Rome’s first conquest 135
Conclusion 138
Tables 143
Figures 152
Bibliography 184

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List of Tables

Tab. 1 Chronological markers from the Sant’Omobono and Forum
Boarium boreholes 144
Tab.2 Key elevations (masl) from the Sant’Omobono and Forum
Boarium boreholes 148
Tab. 3 Radiocarbon results from the Sant’Omobono and Forum
Boarium boreholes 150

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List of Figures

Fig. 1: Map of central Italy 153
Fig. 2: Map of Rome with key hills and valleys labeled (Aldrete 2007, fig. 1.2) 153
Fig. 3: Map of the Tiber River’s catchment basin (Aldrete 2007, fig. 2.4) 154
Fig. 4: Sketch of Rome’s natural landscape drawn by Giovanni Battista Brocchi in
1820 (“La carta fisica del suolo di Roma”) 155
Fig. 5: Sketch of Rome’s natural landscape drawn by Rodolfo Lanciani in 1897
(Lanciani 1897, fig. 1) 155
Fig. 6: Plan of the Forum Boarium valley in the Imperial era (Coarelli 2007, fig. 85) 156
Fig. 7: Photo of the Palazzo dell’Anagrafe and Rome’s modern river embankments,
viewed looking east from the Tiber Island (Lindvall forthcoming, fig. 2) 157
Fig. 8: Sketch plan of the Forum Boarium by Filippo Coarelli in 1988
(Coarelli 1992, 241) 157
Fig. 9: Sketch map of the Archaic Portus Tiberinus by Giovanni Ioppolo in 1989
(Il Viver Quotidiano in Roma Arcaica: Materiali dagli scavi del Tempio
Arcaico nell’area sacra di S. Omobono, fig. 3) 158
Fig. 10: Sketch visualization of the Archaic Portus Tiberinus by Giovanni Ioppolo in
1989 (Il Viver Quotidiano in Roma Arcaica: Materiali dagli scavi del Tempio
Arcaico nell’area sacra di S. Omobono, tav. 1) 159
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