This lecture presents the results of an ongoing five-year campaign of excavation in the Roman town of Falerii Novi in the Middle Tiber Valley north of Rome. The Falerii Novi Project, which began in 2021, has undertaken the first scientific excavations in a city famously founded after Romans sacked the nearby Faliscan city of Falerii Veteres and relocated its residents in 241 BCE. The partial urban plan of the site has been spectacularly revealed by geophysical remote sensing, but our excavations are providing a refined chronology for the town’s occupation, which was much more enduring than previously assumed; surprising evidence for patterns of trade, economic activity, and environmental interactions; and a comprehensive analysis of the city’s residential fabric.

Instead of focusing on the city’s monumental and civic structures, as is often the case for urban investigations, our research questions are aimed at understanding processes of urban development from the bottom up. We have therefore focused on mundane spaces, such as shops, houses, and roadside bars, to provide a more complete picture of Roman urbanism beyond elite and administrative spaces. The project is arguably the most methodologically diverse investigation of a Roman town to date.

Margaret M. Andrews is assistant professor of classics at Harvard University and codirector of the Falerii Novi Project.

This event is free and open to the public, sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America. Please join us in Room 125 of Newberry Hall at the Kelsey Museum.

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