This month, GIAP (ICAC) welcomed Darío Herranz (lab technician) and Federica Riso (MSCA postdoctoral fellow), and we celebrate Valentina Pescini‘s upgrade as Ramón y Cajal researcher!
Valentina Pescini
2 years after she joined GIAP as a Juan de la Cierva researcher, Valentina now joins GIAP again as a Ramón y Cajal researcher, to continue her work on charcoal analysis, landscape archaeology, rural archaeology & palaeoenvironment.
Valentina is a bioarchaeologist, specialised in anthracology and archaeobotany, and her research focuses on the study of agro-sylvo-pastoral practices and their environmental impact through time. She received her Bachelor and Masters degree in Medieval Archaeology (2010) and Archaeobotany (2013) respectively at the University of Siena (Italy). In 2019 she completed her PhD in Historical Geography which was followed by a post-doctoral position at the University of Genoa (Italy). There she has worked in the Laboratory of Environmental Archaeology and History (Cir-LASA) and she’s been collaborating with GIAP’s InterArPa and TransLands projects since 2020. Throughout her career she has collaborated in interdisciplinary research projects with archaeologists, naturalists, historians and geographers.
Darío Herranz
Darío joined GIAP as a lab technician for ICAC’s Archaeobiology lab. Funded by Programa Investigo 2022. He will work on:
- The first stage of the processing of the archaeozoological, archaeobotanical and paleoenvironmental material of the center’s research projects.
- Preparation and expansion of the plant and animal collections of the research center
- Participation in the center’s bioarchaeology experimentation work Realization of protocols safety of the bioarchaeology laboratory Management, purchase and maintenance of materials and equipment for the center’s bioarchaeology laboratories.
Funded by the Investigo Program (INVESTIGO 2022) within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Government, which is funded by NextGenerationEU.
Federica Riso
Dr. Riso is an expert in classical archaeology, specialised in archaeobotany, having been part of one of the best research teams in this field, under the direction of Professor Giovanna Bosi and Anna Maria Mercuri from the University of Modena, in Italy, where she earned her PhD in 2018. In 2019 she obtained an important title in Italy, at the School of Specialization of Archaeological Heritage of the University of Bologna. Federica Riso had previously focused her research on Roman funerary rituals and funeral banquet. In 2021 she has held a postdoctoral position at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) with a project that focuses primarily on the study of boundaries and sanctuaries.
Riso has strong field, laboratory and publication experience, with projects in Europe (France and Belgium). He will join the GIAP group with the NetfoodIT project under the direction of Dra. Alexandra Livarda.
Project abstract
NetFoodIt: Networking food plant imports in Roman Italy (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-101065142)
The emergence of the Roman Empire marked a series of significant political and socio-economic changes across modern-day Italy as well as across a very large part of modern-day Europe. Among these, the establishment of a new transport network and the development of trade and commerce that this facilitated, was one of the most important and lasting changes. NetFoodIt aims at using imported food plants, for the study of Roman transport and movement and the socioeconomic dynamics that this established within the core of the Roman Empire and its broader surroundings, that is, across modern-day Italy. In doing so NetFoodIt will shed new light into the relation between mobility, commerce and the introduction of new tastes in Roman Italy. NetFoodIt will develop a geodatabase of Roman food imports assemblages and study their social access and rarity/regularity. In combination with the Roman transport network the project will next investigate the centrality of the sites with these imports, their character as consumption or redistribution centres and will reconstruct the routes for the distribution of these food plants. This will provide important insights into Roman commerce, economy and the extension and acquisition of new tastes as Rome expanded and developed contacts with other ancient cultures. In order to do so, a combination of novel techniques, which include Social Network Analysis, Site Rarity Index calculations, Spatial Network Analysis and spatial statistics will be employed in conjunction for the first time for Roman Italy. These methods and the training provided during their implementation by a team of leading international researchers will enhance the candidate’s profile with cutting-edge techniques that will situate her at the forefront of research and boost her career.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
