Afragola is an Early Bronze Age village (Palma Campania period) in what is today Italy, that was damaged by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius ~3945 ± 10 cal BP (1995 ± 10 cal BC). The village lay in the Campanian plain of southwestern Italy, about 1000 meters from the ancient river Clanis, about 14 km northwest of Vesuvius, on the other side of the volcano from the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, destroyed some 1,700 years later. About 5,000 square meters of the site has been excavated to date, within an area approximately 120x20 meters including about 27 architectural features.
Baskets, wooden objects, and pottery were left behind by the occupants, but no human remains were discovered within the village, and no bronze objects either; only one animal victim was discovered. Researchers believe that the occupants of Afragola were able to escape with their valuables, supplies and livestock, and to return at least twice to the village to recover some of these items after the ash fall began.
Houses at Afragola
Twenty-four buildings have been excavated at Afragola to date, including six residential structures. These dwellings were horse-shoe shaped in plan, and primarily built of a single, continuous U-shaped wall made of thatched reeds fastened around a framework of small posts. A short second wall made of a row of vertical posts and containing a door filled the opening of the U. The huts measured between ~5.5 and 9.0 meters long and between 4-5 meters wide. Each stood about 3.6 meters high. Each hut had two rooms, the largest containing a hearth or oven. Toward the back of the huts was a second room, apparently for storing food and pottery vessels. The dwellings had steeply pitched thatched roofs that reached to the ground.
Other structures found at the site include small oval outbuildings with conical roofs. These were thickly thatched and measured about 4x2 meters, and included an external fence and entrance. These seem to have been for wood storage. Small circular and large rectangular buildings were used for drying and storage of foodstuffs and livestock. These were built of reed walls and had straw-thatched, sloping roofs.
Open areas of the village were divided by fences of interwoven branches or horizontal planking; maybe they segmented the commons into pieces of grazing pasture.
Volcanic Eruption at Afragola
The Avellino volcanic eruption which covered Afragola has been firmly dated to 3945 calibrated radiocarbon years ago, or 1995 BC. Scholars used radiocarbon dates on wood stumps found beneath the volcanic tephra, and peat above the tephra.
When the volcano first erupted, it must have been witnessed by the village, some 14 km away, but the village itself was not affected. The damage to the village came slowly, in the form of several ash deposits. The first ash deposit covered the entire village, with a thickness of some 15 cm on average. The temperature of this and the other ash deposits when they were laid down was between 260 and 320 degrees centigrade.
On the surface of this layer was discovered thousands of human footprints, and rarer animal hoofprints; and, in some places, the marks of something heavy being dragged. Researchers believe that the ash fall cooled within three hours, enough to allow people access to the village. Two more ash deposits of 5 and 2 cm thick came, and the surface of these also had human footprints. At least one house was entered after this third fall, although most were avoided, suggesting that the buildings were still standing.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Di Vito MA, Zanella E, Gurioli L, Lanza R, Sulpizio R, Bishop J, Tema E, Boenzi G, and Laforgia E. 2009. The Afragola settlement near Vesuvius, Italy: The destruction and abandonment of a Bronze Age village revealed by archaeology, volcanology and rock-magnetism. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 277(3-4):408-421.
Matarazzo T, Berna F, and Goldberg P. 2010. Occupation surfaces sealed by the Avellino eruption of Vesuvius at the Early Bronze Age village of Afragola in southern Italy: A micromorphological analysis. Geoarchaeology 25(4):437-466.
Sevink J, van Bergen MJ, van der Plicht J, Feiken H, Anastasia C, and Huizinga A. 2011. Robust date for the Bronze Age Avellino eruption (Somma-Vesuvius): 3945 ± 10 calBP (1995 ± 10 calBC). Quaternary Science Reviews 30(9-10):1035-1046.
