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137 12 Conclusions and Future Directions The Capo Alfiere excavations began with modest objectives that were overtaken by the subsequent unexpected discoveries at the site. The initial intent was to recover sufficient information to begin a reconstruction of the sequence of agricultural economic exploitation of the Crotone area. The large walls were discovered during our attempt to open sufficient site area to allow confident interpretation of the economic data from floral and faunal remains. At the time of this writing, the interpretation of this and other data is still somewhat problematic given the difficulty of deciding the role of the enclosure walls and, with that, the context of the associated finds. The architecture was recognized as a significant discovery during the first season of work. As this also represented a large portion of the surviving area of the site, it became the focus of research. However, the various lines of evidence summarized in the preceding chapters show that the site and its objects have raised a number of questions regarding the present understanding of Calabrian prehistory. These findings have considerable potential for addressing a wide variety of research topics in the future. Interpretation of any one line of evidence in isolation from the rest is restrictive, and a more complete understanding must involve recognition of the covariance of several factors. In this regard, the stratified nature of the site is extremely helpful, inasmuch as it highlights the temporal differences within the Middle Neolithic deposits themselves. The evidence to date from the two significant Neolithic strata shows indications of change. To some extent, then, the circumstances within which the structures in the upper level came to exist can be examined. Interpretation of the Enclosure Understanding of the results of the excavations at Capo Alfiere hinges upon the interpretation of the architectural construction found in the main level (Stratum II)—the large walls around the hut. One is hampered by the lack of adjacent contemporaneous material that might place these features, the walls and hut, within a broader site context. That said, certain salient points should be considered. The scale of construction seems exaggerated for a purely residential entity. This should be considered in the light of evidence from Piano di Curinga (Ammerman et al. 1988) or Piano Vento (Castellana 1987), where structures that are interpreted as residential have been unearthed. These are much more comparable to the hut traces within the walling at Capo Alfiere than to the walls themselves. The peculiar construction for the walls would seem to argue against their being primarily defensive, as has been suggested for Piano Vento and Serra del Palco (Castellana 1987). If the interpretation of the artifact scatter along the eastern side of the headland of Capo Alfiere is correct, then the original settlement was much larger than just the excavated area and the enclosure; the amount of the site lost to the erosion of the headland by the sea will never be known. Thus, the walled enclosure and hut, as reconstructed in Chapter 6, were presumably within the confines of the Neolithic settlement here. In such circumstances, defense, particularly for the site as a whole, does not seem to be a likely primary consideration, although such a subsidiary use should not be excluded. An enclosure implies a demarcation of space within the settlement. An enclosure can be both inclusive and exclusive. In this case, the substantial nature of the construction of the walling would be more than was necessary for simple exclusionary purposes: a wattle fence, for example, could serve as adequately for some purposes. Both the elaborateness and the massiveness of the end result make a statement about the investment of effort in its construction. The care taken with the interior facade of the walling in the placement of the facing slabs implies an inward, rather than outward , focus to the architecture enclosed. That is, the purpose was not only exclusionary, but it also served to embellish the interior space thus distinguished. Whether or not the final product could have been described as monumental, the investment of effort in 138 Conclusions the elaboration and massiveness of the construction is intriguing. Trigger (1990, 125) has referred to the expenditure of effort on architecture for non-utilitarian (from our perspective) purposes as a demonstration of “political power in the ability to control energy.” This might represent an effort either at personal enhancement , such as a prestige marker of an individual dwelling, or, much more likely in this case, a communal focus such as a...

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