The project sets out to investigate the innovations deployed on the eastern Adriatic as adaptive strategies to mitigate wider political, economic, fiscal, and environmental shifts occuring in the Late Antique period. The effects of these processes are evident in the landscape through several developments, including alterations in existing urban and rural settlements, the emergence of new – often fortified – sites, and the reorganization of territorial structures, all of which are still poorly recognised and understood at the regional level.
Building upon recent developments and identifying the shortcomings of available data, the main goal of the here proposed research will be understanding the changes in the organization of the landscape and settlement patterns in late antiquity (4th/5th – 7th c.) on the eastern Adriatic. Two case study areas will be tackled, comprising the Island of Rab (NE Adriatic) and the wider area of Roman Danilo – municipium Riditarum, located in a peri-coastal karst valley in central Dalmatia (Šibenik municipality). This will be achieved by applying an innovative, micro-regional and holistic approach and employing interdisciplinary methodologies for data collection and analyses.
The proposed research will approach the transformations in settlement by tackling areas where two site-types can be studied in parallel. Firstly, the project will set out to study late antique fortifications as the new form of settling identified in the region and therefore a major marker of social and consequently cultural change, but also the least studied site-type from the standpoint of precise chronologies and material culture. It will focus on collecting a diverse dataset useful to provide more secure chronologies and suggest functional differentiation of sites and structures. Secondly, it will focus on understanding the relationship with sites located in their proximity, that is rural and urban settlements with late antique phases of (re)use. The choice of the selected case studies is based on several criteria, that is: the geographical diversity of the two areas (an island and a peri-coastal valley); existence of a chronological and spatial relationship between a fortified site and a rural or urban settlement; the availability of recent excavation or legacy data; the feasibility of the proposed research methodologies.