Does Chronology Matter? The Early Medieval Venice Narrates through Water, Wood and Labor

Abstract

How much do the historical events rewritten through archaeology speak for themselves as memories, and how much do the archaeologists construct them into cohesive narratives? This paper aims to consider the demanding activities of sequencing events and building effective chronologies in order to transform archaeological records in meaningful historical events.

Using early medieval Venice and its origins as a test case, I would investigate the political and cultural role of pre-manufactured chronologies built around few problematic late antique and early medieval written sources in the interpretation and narration of the archaeological records. I will also attempt a comparison between the different approaches to the materiality of the Venetian past including both Italian academics, conditioned by a strong historicist tradition since Croce’s works, and the international scholars’ community.

The paper, integrating ecological degradation and anthropological theory of materiality, aim to reassess the process formation of new settlements in the Venetian lagoons at the end of the Roman period. From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle ages, specific ethnic and social groups developed a new perception of the geography of Europe and of the Mediterranean region. The unique relationship with the lagoon environment is bringing novel perspectives to the interpretation of archaeological dataset. The human-ecological relationships that underpinned the rise of Venice emphasize the social aspect of the materiality of the past, and simultaneously it seems to have a significant legacy in the present.