Il castelliere protostorico di Udine: datazioni radiometriche e successione delle fasi insediative nell’ottica del popolamento del Caput Adriae tra Bronzo medio e Bronzo finale

The Castelliere of Udine, with an occupied surface area that from the earliest phases could have been around 15 hectares, is the largest fortified settlement in Friuli; recent analyses at 14C date its earliest phases of occupation to between c. 1500 and 1400 BC, i.e. to the Middle Bronze Age 2 (Middle Bronze IIA-IIB), in line with data from the study of pottery, now recovered in conspicuous quantities in many town samplings. The results obtained from the core drilling carried out on the Castle Hill (elevation 140 m asl) up to the elevation corresponding to the town level (located between 111 and 109 m asl) suggested that the Hill was largely, if not completely, erected by man as early as around 1400 BC. These data, i.e. the size of the settlement and the manpower required to build a mound 30 metres high and approximately 150 metres in diameter at the base, concur in attributing Udine, in agreement with what has been argued for years by scholars of protohistory in north-eastern Italy, a leading role in the Bronze Age settlement system of Caput Adriae. The investigations carried out in 2020 and 2021 in the centre of the city have provided important information not only of a chronological nature, but also regarding the presence of specialised processing areas and the definition of the occupation phases of the village. The context of Palazzo Dorta, located on the southern slopes of the Castle Hill, has in fact yielded an 'in situ' archaeological sequence of the Middle Bronze and Early Recent Bronze Ages obliterated by gravel deposits originating from the Hill that could indicate the existence of a clear caesura between Recent Bronze 2 and the Early Final Bronze Age when the structure of the Hill is no longer controlled. This critical phase may have already been overcome by the Final Bronze Age 2, as shown by the context of Via Mercatovecchio, a context that signals the start of extensive reoccupation of the hill-fort area; this inhabitation revival is accompanied by a substantial change in the cultural references of the ceramic repertoire, now oriented decisively towards the cultural groups of the south-eastern Urn Fields, in particular continental Slovenia. It is possible that these factors are interconnected and that the extensive reoccupation of the village is to be related to the arrival of new groups from the south-east of the Alps already proposed for the region for the phase between Recent Bronze Age 2 and early Final Bronze Age.