Title: Multidisciplinary and statistical approach for the investigation and characterization of archaeological artifacts

Abstract

A well-preserved Pompeiian-type millstone fragment was retrieved from the chance discovery of Roman ovens dating to the V-VI century BCE in the area of Santa Arabona Manoppello in Italy. This is the first evidence of an hourglass millstone in Abruzzo. The hourglass grinder is comprised of a lower conical stone called a meta and an upper one shaped like an open hourglass, or catillus. The meta is fixed to a base at the central point of the height of the catillus, that of maximum narrowing. Two holes were drilled to fix the wooden poles to be used for the yoke of the draft animals (Figure 1a, c). This fragment was analyzed through archaeometry, petrography, geochemistry, statistical analyses, and radiogenic isotopes at the University G. d’Annunzio. The source location of the stones was narrowed down to the areas of Etna, Roccamonfina, and Vulsini due to the petrography, geochemistry, and statistical data elaboration of leuicititic and basaltic rocks from Central Italy and Sicily. The accurate identification of the provenance of the stone used to produce the millstone results in a better understanding of commercial trade routes and Roman entrepreneurship throughout Italy. The correlation between the production site and its stones’ dispersion throughout the Roman Empire is of great interest for understanding the vast network of Roman roads, their manageability of commerce, and the organization of their products to the outlying areas of their Empire and in the case of this discovery, specifically to the area of Abruzzo Italy. This paper offers an example of which methodologies may ensure a correct estimation of possible rock sources, overcoming petrographic uncertainty, moreover, is a new multidisciplinary approach to identify Cultural Heritage materials with statistical method applied to history and earth sciences.