ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the recent development of medieval archaeology in Italy. The necessity of a systematic knowledge not just of artefacts or sites, but also of their context was developed, covering even the medieval period, proposing a preservation program that was not based on fortuitous discoveries, with episodic and often illogical intervention of preservation. The ‘first-generation’ rural fortresses, that is to say those built between the 5th and the 7th century ad, have been the subject of interest from historians since the beginning of the 20th century, and Giampiero Bognetti considered them expression of a militarization of society, affecting and profoundly transforming settlement patterns. In Italy, medieval archaeology defined itself as ancillary to the stratigraphie method, aimed — according to some archaeologists — at the reconstruction of sequences of excavated sites, eventually comprising a wide range of technical and scientific analyses.
