Media Release

For Immediate Release

July 25, 2008

Archaeology students make important discoveries at Roman dig in Italy

Dr. Myles McCallum (centre) is one of the leaders of an international team of archaeology students and professors currently exploring the site of a Roman villa in Italy.

An international team of students and professors has made some important discoveries this summer during an archaeological dig at San Felice, the site of a Roman villa built more than 2,000 years ago outside the city of Gravina in Puglia, Italy.

The 12-member team, led by Dr. Myles McCallum of Saint Mary's University and Dr. J. vanderLeest of Mount Allison University is comprised of students from universities across Canada, the United States and Great Britain. 

During the field school from July 5 to August 2, the students are excavating the remains of a Roman villa complex that includes a rural residence and agricultural site. The villa was constructed in the late first century BC and abandoned in the late third or early fourth century AD.

The students are also processing and examining the various finds recovered from the site, including pottery, glass artifacts, animal bone, painted plaster, coins and roof tile.

Important discoveries made this season include a piece of Roman pottery stamped with a Menorah, a Jewish religious symbol. The find suggests there was a Jewish presence at the site during the last hundred years of its occupation, at a time when the Jewish communities in southern Italian towns were prospering.

Another key discovery is a substantial amount of sheep and goat bone, along with shears, that suggest sheep herding was of some importance. The students have also discovered the first evidence for well-appointed living quarters, including multi-colored, figural frescoes and marble flooring.

The goal of archaeological field work is to better understand the cultural changes that occurred in the region during the Roman imperial period, when there is a dramatic shift in subsistence and residence patterns from peasant farmers engaged in subsistence agriculture to large villa estates directed towards market production.

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For more information:

Blake Patterson
Public Affairs Officer
Saint Mary's University, Public Affairs
(902) 420.5514
E-mail: blake.patterson@smu.ca
www.smu.ca