Regional Demographic Trends and Settlement Patterns in Central Italy: Archaeological Sites and Radiocarbon Dates

Abstract

To our knowledge, the dataset described in this paper represents the largest existing repository of archaeological settlement (7,383 sites) and radiocarbon data (816 samples) for central Italy, spanning the period from the Late Mesolithic (ca. 8,000 BC) to the fall of the Roman Empire (500 AD). This dataset is also one of the six case studies in a Leverhulme Trust funded project called 'Changing the Face of the Mediterranean: Land Cover and Population Since the Advent of Farming' (Grant Ref. RPG-2015-031), a Plymouth-UCL collaboration which aims to reconstruct regional demographic trends and change in land cover/vegetation over the longue 'durée'.

Keywords

• archaeological sites
• radiocarbon dates
• settlement patterns
• Mediterranean archaeology