Dynamics and effects of the Vesuvius Pomici di Avellino Plinian eruption and related phenomena on the Bronze Age landscape of Campania region (Southern Italy)

Abstract

The Pomici di Avellino eruption is the Plinian event of Vesuvius with the highest territorial impact. It affected an area densely inhabited by Early Bronze Age human communities and resulted in the long- term abandonment of an extensive zone surrounding the volcano. Traces of human life beneath the eruption products are very common throughout the Campania Region. A systematic review of the available archaeological data, the study of geological and archaeological sequences exposed in excava- tions, and the reconstruction of the volcanic phenomena affecting single sites has yielded an under- standing of local effects and their duration. The archaeological and volcanological analyses have shown that the territory was rapidly abandoned before and during the eruption, with rare post-eruption at- tempts at resettlement of the same sites inhabited previously. The definition of the distribution and stratigraphy of alluvial deposits in many of the studied sequences leads us to hypothesise that the scarce presence of humans during phases 1 and 2 of the Middle Bronze Age in the wide area affected by the eruption was due to diffuse phenomena of remobilisation of the eruption products, generating long- lasting alluvial processes. These were favoured by the deposition of loose fine pyroclastic material on the slopes of the volcano and the Apennines, and by climatic conditions. A significant resettlement of the territory occurred only hundreds of years after the Pomici di Avellino eruption, during phase 3 of the Middle Bronze Age. This study show the role of volcanic and related phenomena from a Plinian event in the settlement dynamics of a complex territory like Campania.