MVAP Intro

2000 INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the web site of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project and Poggio Colla Field School. This web site presents current information about the excavation project directed by Professor P. Gregory Warden, a Classical archaeologist and Associate Dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. The project is sponsored by the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University and by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

For information on the year 2001 Field School at Poggio Colla, click here: 2001 Field School.

The Mugello Valley in Tuscany.

This Etruscan excavation is part of a long-term project which centers on Poggio Colla, a site in the Mugello near the modern town of Vicchio, about twenty miles northeast of Florence, Italy. Poggio Colla was first excavated from 1968 to 1972 by Dr. Francesco Nicosia, the former Superintendent for the Archaeology of Tuscany. With Dr. Nicosia's permission and encouragement, the excavations have continued to reveal a site that promises to contribute tremendously to our knowledge of Etruscan Italy.

The excavation functions also as the Poggio Colla Field School, allowing students from North American and European universities to participate in the excavation project each summer while studying Etruscan archaeology and archaeological field techniques.

Excavation team in the Podere Funghi below Poggio Colla.

A long-term goal of our project is an interdisciplinary regional landscape analysis of the area around Poggio Colla. Through the integrated use of geomorphology, archaeology (both survey and excavation), and history, we hope to create a kind of landscape archaeology for the region.

Part of the mission of our project is pedagogical. If archaeology is to survive as a discipline into the next century, it will have to develop a broader base of support and will have to change its image from an elite and esoteric discipline understood by only a chosen few. Archaeological sites are becoming endangered by pollution, construction, and human pressures that run the gamut from neglect to outright vandalism. We hope that over the years, through our field school, we will train a large number of individuals, some of whom may go on to become professional archaeologists, but most of whom, no matter what their career, will become advocates of cultural and archaeological preservation.

View of the Podere Funghi and Poggio Colla above.

We hope to make our site and our cause known to a greater public through the use of the Internet, CD-ROMs, an outreach program in the United States and Italy, and a distance learning program offered through Southern Methodist University. Every year we publish an annual report that is deliberately unscholarly, without footnotes or jargon. From 1997 onward, the reports will be translated into Italian by the Comune di Vicchio. These reports provide insight into our excavation strategy and the changing interpretation of the site. We will continue to publish informal annual reports and will include them on this website. Additionally, we have published a scholarly report on the 1995 and 1996 seasons in Etruscan Studies.

For background information and the history of the site, see Site History.

This is a semi-live website including everything from student diaries to excavation summaries, finds, and a director's diary. While in the field, the team will report on their activities through periodic updates of this website. Additional reports on special projects, botanical research, distinguished visiting professionals, and other materials will be added as they become available.
Stay tuned.

Director, P. Gregory Warden gwarden@mail.smu.edu
or during the excavation season: mvap@dada.it

While the team is in Italy during the summer field season, send e-mail to: mvap@dada.it
To email an individual on the team, put that person's name in the subject heading.
Excavation house phone: 055-844-9834, or, when calling from the US: 011-39-55-844-9834.