LIGHT ARCHAEOLOGY AND TERRITORIAL ANALYSIS: perspectives and experiences of the Florentine medievalist school

The need to develop a method of territorial survey was felt by rising medieval archeology in Italy since the years of its disciplinary foundation (about 1970-1980), when this area of research aimed to stand in line with the requirements expressed by the French 'Annalists' for the history of medieval societies. It was perhaps in Florence, under the guidance of the historian Elio Conti, that maturated essential conditions for a choice that identified archeology as a meta-methodological tool able to produce documentation of the material facts ultimately useful for the purpose of historical reconstruction. Italian Medieval Archeology also directed methodological efforts towards non-invasive research tools. A most relevant contribution to international debates in this field was the adoption of stratigraphic theory for the study of historical architectural complexes, that between the '970s and the '990s paved the way for a rich series of studies which in a decade came to cover the entire national territory. In the framework of historical archeology and methodological development is set since 1998 the 'strategic project' of the University of Florence for Medieval Archeology, dedicated to the study of Mediterranean feudal societies through their "archaeological profiles". The research, conducted by the Chair of Medieval Archaeology, coordinates 9 local projects sampling a wide area between Central Mediterranean and the Near East, with a particular focus on Italy and Jordan. Each project aims to produce historical-archaeological interpretation of a cultural area in its production and socio-economic aspects, including cultural and ideological 'profiles'. The paper will elaborate on the results achieved by research teams in Italy and Jordan with a special attention to actual contributions brought by the project to archaeological methods and historical interpretation in general.