Fortuitous Interventions: Geomorphological and Artefactual Investigations on Neolithic Features Exposed at Two [Puglian] Gravel Quarries

This chapter describes the archaeological investigation of features exposed during gravel quarrying at two Puglian Neolithic enclosures (villaggi trincerati), previously known only from aerial photographs—Cava Petrilli, near Lucera, and Canale Gavitella, near Stornara. These exposed features were identified and recorded during the the UCL Institute of Archaeology Tavoliere-Gargano Prehistory Project's "Mass Survey" of c. 180 Neolithic enclosures on the Tavoliere Plain. Detailed and interpreted are both the sedimentology of and the artefactual and environmental material observed in the features. These help put the sites, as visible in the aerial photographs, in context, and so contribute significantly to our understanding of them, and of Neolithic sites in the region generally. Appendices by Richard Macphail, David Sanderson, Michela Spataro, Ken Thomas, Louise Martin and the project directors, Sue Hamilton and Ruth Whitehouse consider site micromorphology and OLS, pottery, radiocarbon dating and archaeoenvironmental material. The chapter concludes with a short appendix by Mike Seager Thomas on the destruction of other Neolithic sites in the region and the possible implications of this for the wider Neolithic archaeology of the region.