The Content of Roman and Late Antique Amphorae as Economic Proxy. A Case Study on the Analysis of the Organic Residues in Amphorae from the Black Sea Hinterland (Yambol Region, Southeastern Bulgaria)
Abstract
Within the framework of a research project conducted at the Institute of Classical Archaeology of the Freie Univ. Berlin, focusing on Roman consumption and Late Antique economic change, the scientific analysis of the content of the amphorae aims at generating new proxies for the study of distribution and consumption patterns.
The project includes several case studies from different Eastern and Western Mediterranean areas, regional topographic settings and settlement typologies/hierarchies. The case study presented here concerns the analysis of organic residues in amphorae excavated at two rural Roman and Late Roman hinterland settlements in the Yambol region (southeastern Bulgaria).
The first group of amphora finds comes from the late Roman site of Dodoparon, located on the top of the hill about 1,5 km to the village of Golyam Manastir. The considered amphorae were recovered from the destruction layer of one house dated into 70's-80 of the 6th century AD.
The assemblage incorporates five containers belonging to the type Late Roman 2 and two smaller amphorae of type Kuzmanov XIV. The second group of finds comes from an Early Roman site known as Yurta, located in the lowland about 1,5 km to the village of Stroyno.
The site, probably a vicus, was so far excavated only in short period campaigns, which allowed dating the whole complex to the end of the 1st century until the half of the 3rd century AD. During the last campaign 2014 two major types of amphorae were recognized: Kapitän 2 and Dressel 24.