New research on two mountainous settlements in Molise, Central Italy The hillfort of La Romana (Isernia, IS) and the mountain top site of Lo Monaco (Longano, IS)

Challenging accessibility and visibility conditions limit our understanding of mountain sites in the Apennine areas. Given the difficult terrain, the archaeological information currently at our disposal has, as a rule, been collected in a non-systematic way. This hampers comparison and integration within wider, regional landscape archaeological projects. In this paper, we present a field method applied to two mountain sites with different characteristics in the province of Isernia, Molise. The hillfort of La Romana near Castelromano presents monumental walls enclosing an area of c. 20 ha, and is almost fully covered with forest and shrubs. The site of Lo Monaco near Longano, is smaller, with c. 0.6 ha, and has a barren, rocky surface. We applied a systematic point sampling strategy, collecting all finds within circles with a 1 m radius, combined with diagnostic sampling in larger spatial units. We also used various remote sensing and fieldwork methods to map structural remains. This combined method aimed to strike a balance between adaptation to the particularities of different mountain sites, and comparability of the results. We offer a new reconstruction of the walled area(s) of La Romana, and propose a chronological and functional interpretation discerning an Archaic-Hellenistic phase and a Late Roman-Medieval phase. For Lo Monaco, we propose a main Classical-Hellenistic phase of the settlement, and present evidence for (semi)permanent habitation as well as metal-working at the site. We conclude that the point sampling method is labour-intensive, but effective in better understanding the internal configuration and chronological development of mountain sites.