Recent Work At Forum Novum
The current British School at Rome's project at Forum Novum began in 1997. The aim is to apply a series of approaches to the center in order to provide a detailed and systematic study. As such it provides a complement to the other urban studies being carried out as part of the Tiber Valley Project, in particular to the study of the larger scales of urban form currently being carried out by Simon Keay and Martin Millett.
The Survey results from Geophysical survey techniques have shown that the site does not seem to have had a dense settlement or population, and in fact the only buildings which seem to have been domestic were associated with the small tabernae. An urban villa was also found close to the centre and cannot be ignored in discussion of the site. As well as these buildings, the survey located the forum, baths complex and Amphitheatre. Some areas could not be surveyed with Geophysics and so Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) was used to fill in the gaps.
Excavation was also carried out alongside the survey to give a fuller picture of the site.
The site does not seem to have been heavily populated, therefore, and can be interpreted as a focus for the rural population, which was monumentalized by some local elites, perhaps just the one family from the urban villa, trying to create a Roman settlement, but in order to understand the site more fully, a survey of the hinterland of Forum Novum would be appropriate.
Whether Forum Novum was the "norm" or an exception is only something which will be discovered with further surveying of the Tiber Valley.
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