The environmental context, agricultural potential and location choices of Roman Villae in Italy

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Between the late republican and the early imperial periods, villae emerged in the Italian countryside. In an exciting multi-disciplinary study sitting across classics, archaeology and geography, the environmental variables of villas' surrounding landscape will be analysed through: (i) a Geographic Information System (GIS) to obtain agricultural potential maps of the studied areas, (ii) available archaeobotanical data from Italian luxury villas, and (iii) local/regional environmental reconstructions from lake records. The results will help to understand to which extent agricultural productivity could have influenced villas' location and function. In line with RHUL's Living Sustainably Catalyst, the outcomes will enhance our understanding of Roman Italy's agricultural landscape and explore questions of deforestation, overexploitation and human impact on nature, as well as the potential vulnerabilities of a complex society to climate-induced environmental change in the Late Roman period. This provides critical historical context for current concerns over land use, ecological impact and ultimately our own society's vulnerability.