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Chapter One. The Site of Capo Alfiere
- University of Texas Press
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1 1 The Site of Capo Alfiere Capo Alfiere is a small promontory (Fig. 1.1) on Italy’s Ionian coast, located about halfway down the eastern coast of Calabria, which is the southernmost region of the Italian peninsula (Fig. 1.2). The promontory is approximately 8 km south of the harbor town of Crotone . This is the largest nearby population center and has been such since the founding of a Greek colony there more than two and a half millennia ago. Capo Alfiere is on the coast of what would have been the southern part of the territory of the Greek city. Today, there is a cluster of recent houses about 100 m north of the site, which is called Alfiere.1 This present ham1 There is some ambiguity about the correct form of the name. The correct form may be “Alfieri,” as first referenced by Giovanbattista di Nola Molisi in Cronaca dell’Antichissima e Nobilissima Cittá di Crotone e della Magna Grecia (1649). However, the name also appears on some Istituto Geografico Militare (IGM) maps as “Alfiere” and this is evidently what Figure 1.1 Capo Alfiere, looking south-southwest from Capo Colonna. The Neolithic site is on the tip of the headland. (CW) let is, however, a recent phenomenon, mostly resulting from settlement in the 1950s after the division and redistribution of property formerly owned by large estates . Politically, Crotone and this area are now part of the province of Catanzaro, a town some fifty km to the west.2 This is the central province of the three major modern administrative subdivisions of Calabria. The scatter of Neolithic material indicating the location of the site is situated along the top of a cliff face, on the east side of the coastal headland of Capo Morter followed. It is not uncommon to find toponyms on IGM maps at variance with local usage. Here we note that “Alfiere” is probably a variant of the correct name, but we follow Morter’s usage for reasons of consistency (information from D. Marino, personal communication, 2007). (JR) 2 Crotone has been proposed as the center for a new province, so this may change shortly. (As Morter foretold, the Crotone area has become an independent province, with the city of Crotone as its capital [JR]). 2 The Site of Capo Alfiere Figure 1.2 Map of the territory of ancient Croton (modern Crotone). Crotone Capo Alfiere Capo Rizzuto Le Castella 0 2 km Capo Colonna Figure 1.3 View of the Capo Alfiere site, looking northeast towards Capo Colonna. (CW) resize original [35.175.172.94] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:24 GMT) 3 Jon Morter Figure1.4Lookingwest.TheheadlandatCapoAlfiere,showingerosionofslope.Theexcavationsiteisnotedbythearrow;thecommercial campground is directly below. (G. Cantafero). Alfiere. To the east, this location overlooks the sandy beach of Hera Lacinia (named after the noted Greek temple, one column of which still stands approximately 2 km to the east-northeast). The headland itself has a slight crest, with all Neolithic remains to date coming from the east side. To the west of the headland is another sandy beach. This stretch of coastline as a whole is part of the southern coast of the major cape of Capo Colonna, named after the lone column (Fig. 1.3). This is the last headland as the coast, as one comes east from a point near the break in the mountains at Catanzaro , turns north towards the Gulf of Taranto. The headland of Capo Alfiere is currently subject to erosion by the sea. Loss of site area, collapsing down slope, is quite clear (Fig. 1.4). The Neolithic site at present occupies a strip about 20 m wide running for perhaps 100 m along the cliff. It is on the property of two families, and a boundary ditch between these was cut in the early 1980s. The more northern and eastern property is lower in elevation, which may be from soil loss at some point. After dividing the land holdings, the ditch continues through the site along the edge of the cliff to the tip of the headland, apparently to carry water away from the terraces on the lower part of the cliff, which are part of a commercial campground. In the past ten years, both faces of the headland of Capo Alfiere have been subject to periodic —and illegal—bulldozing, intended to improve the existing campground on the east, or in anticipation of an expansion to the southwest. The sherd scatter at the site was...