The Pile-Dwelling Settlement at Pieve di Carpegna (Carpegna, Pesaro-Urbino)

The Pieve di Carpegna pile-dwelling site presents several aspects of considerable interest. Its location highlights the attraction of wetland environments – even small ones – within the Apennine area for communities of the Early Bronze Age and the earliest phase of the Middle Bronze Age (the site is situated at 620 m a.s.l.). This provides further evidence for the tendency to establish settlements, often of long duration, in wetland or lacustrine settings – a pattern well attested in northern and central-Tyrrhenian Italy, as well as in the internal areas of the central Apennines, from the Early Bronze Age onwards. The presence of occupations in lacustrine contexts within the Marche Apennines represents a new occurrence. Notable connections with contemporary settlements in Romagna and northern Marche may indicate a specific archaeological facies, which has not yet been fully defined.