Dr Claudia Minniti

Telephone: 0114 22 22950 - 22952
E-mail: C.Minniti@sheffield.ac.uk

Claudia Minniti

Intra-European Marie Curie Fellow

I have over 12 years of professional experience in archaeology and archaeozoology. In the course of my pre- and post-doctoral career I have developed a substantial experience in the study of faunal remains and molluscs from archaeological sites. My main geographic area of investigation is Italy, but I have also worked in other countries, such as Syria, Turkey and Britain.
My work has resulted in more than 40 papers in national and international journals, conference proceedings and books. I have also acquired a good deal of experience in teaching and students’ supervision at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and in setting up laboratories and reference collections for both teaching and research purposes.
I have just moved to Sheffield where I am working for two years with a European grant (Marie Curie) on a research project concerning the comparative analysis of the Iron Age/Roman husbandry transition in Italy and England.
My main areas of research include:

Roman and Medieval food and husbandry:

Since 1993 I have been involved as collaborator of Soprintendenza Archeologica of Rome in many zooarchaeological projects in Rome and in Latium, dealing with many different periods of human history. I have been in particular specialized in the study of husbandry practices in the Roman and medieval periods. I recorded important samples of animal remains, such as that coming from the ancient town of Leopoli-Cencelle (the ancient Civitavecchia), the Crypta Balbi and monastic contexts of Trinita’ dei Monti e S. Maria degli Angeli in Rome. These studies have particularly concerned the role of animal raised in meat consumption, the nature of animal exploitation in Italy the role of hunting as expression of high status and the relationship between diet and religious practises into monastic orders in medieval times.

Subsistence economy and social complexity in central Italy during the Bronze and the Iron Age Iron Age:

This is a subject I have been involved with for more during my PHD work between 2004 and 2008. I have analysed different faunal samples dated to the Middle Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age from both Latium and Abruzzi. I was interested in understanding the succession of occupational forms throughout the Bronze Age and the initial phases of the Iron Age so as to understand their evolution and, at the same time, gather information regarding both the cultural and the socio-economic aspects that characterized the pertaining human groups. This study founded its analysis of those aspects of the primary economy that are tied to the relationships existing between the inhabitants of the settlements considered and the animals attested, on both territorial and archaeozoological data.

Ritual use of animals:

In the last years I have studied several samples from burial grounds of Lazio and Rome that therefore providing new information useful in the understanding some of the ritual aspects of funerary practices during the Early Iron Age. My studies have been focalized on their contribute to understand if and how different animal food offerings reflect the emergence and development of socio-political complexity in human societies.

The exploitation of shells in the Mediterraneum area during the Bronze Age:

I have studied a large number of marine shells, over 50.000 specimens, found at the Bronze Age settlement of Coppa Nevigata in the south-east of Italy (Apulia) since working on the post-graduate specialisation project at the University of Rome. My main area of work has been the contribution of living molluscs to food provision, economy and trading activities, like as purple dye, of groups that lived in the Aegean area during the Bronze Age.

Animal husbandry, hunting and the wild animals exploitation in northern Syria and Turkey between the Early Neolithic Ceramic to the Iron Age:

My interest in this area originally started with my work on the Bronze Age sites of Tell Mardikh-Ebla and Tell Tuqan (Syria) and then I had the opportunity to work on the animal bones from the Early Neolithic Ceramic of Yumuktepe (Turkey). My main area of work has been the contribution of zooarchaeology to the understanding the economic transformations through time by means of the study of the hand-collected mammals bones and to monitor the territory and the environment around settlements through the analysis of water-sieved small mammal remains.

Teaching:

For many years I have been teaching assistant to the lecturer in Archaeozoology of the University of Salento (Italy). From 2003 to 2006 I have taught Archaeozoology at the University of Foggia (Italy), with practical and theoretical sessions and supervision of under- and postgraduate students.