Contribution Of Archaeology To Medieval And Modern Sardinia 279
3 The Case Study of the Medieval Deserted Village of Geridu
It was with the aim of comparing written sources with material culture that
ten excavation campaigns (1995–2000) were conducted at the site of the medi-
eval village or villa of Geridu.34
The excavation of Geridu has generated great interest among historians and
medievalists, showing, for the first time, the material condition of everyday life
in the Sardinian countryside. While the written sources for this period on the
material culture are practically absent, what is increasingly emerging from the
Geridu excavation and other villages is that the housing conditions (type of
dwellings and construction techniques) were not very different from those of
the medieval towns of the island.
The use of bio-archaeology allows further innovative perspectives; for ex-
ample, the archaeobotany provided for a preliminary reconstruction of the
nature of the woods and agricultural landscape around the village of Geridu35
and provided interesting information on the history of goods. The same data
was integrated with the analysis of the archaeo-zoological fauna. Concerning
anthropology, the biological archives are represented by cemeteries of which
Geridu’s has been thoroughly studied. The research conducted with the use
of new technologies further highlighted the conditions of the inhabitants.
Particularly interesting is the identification of an unknown genome of brucel-
losis which has been celebrated as a significant scientific discovery; it repre-
sents an exceptional sample whose genome has been called “Geridu 1.”36 The
archaeological excavation of Geridu revealed the potential of archaeology to
address the topography of villages, their material culture, trade, economic ac-
tivities, physical features, the paleopathology and diet of their population, their
34 Marco Milanese, “Il villaggio medievale di Geridu. Archeologia e storia di un villaggio
medievale in Sardegna,” Sardegna Medievale 1 (2001), pp. 1–87; Barbara Fois, “Sardegna,”
in Medievistica italiana e storia agraria: risultati e prospettive di una stagione storiografica:
atti del convegno di Montalcino, 12–14 dicembre 1997, eds A. Cortonesi and M. Montanari
(Bologna, 2001), pp. 79–90; Barbara Fois, “L’insediamento Umano nella Sardegna
Meridionale in Età Giudicale (secc. XI–XIV),” Mélanges De L’École Française De Rome.
Moyen Âge 113:1 (2001), pp. 27–39.
35 A. Deiana, S. Bagella, M. Milanese, and R. Filigheddu, “Plant Exploitation and Cultural
Landscape Related to the Medieval Village of Geridu (Sardinia, Italy),” Plant Biosystems
150, 2 (2016), pp. 1–26.
36 M. Milanese, G.L. Kay, M.J. Sergeant, V. Giuffra, P. Bandiera, B. Bramanti, M.J. Pallen,
“Recovery of a Medieval Brucella melitensis Genome Using Shotgun Metagenomics,”
MBio, 5, 4 (2014), e01337–14.