Produzione e circolazione della ceramica tra Campania settentrionale e area vesuviana in età tardo-antica (IV - VI secolo d.C.).

Several years ago pottery evidence was used in proposing a social and economic model for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in southern Italy: since then, various new pottery groups have been published. For Campania we can now draw upon abundant data from Naples and the Phlegrean Fields (in and around Pozzuoli), from the area of Mt. Vesuvius and from northern and inland Campania. The data shows the existence of pottery workshops which produced table ceramics similar to North African productions in northern Campania and the Vesuvius area: their products circulated outside local territory. This phenomenon started during the 2nd century A.D. (by imitating table and kitchen pottery from North Africa), but seems to have continued up to the 4th century. The workshops were sited mainly in rural areas, closely connected to agricultural activities that produced a surplus for trade. The significant distribution which characterized the ager Falernus pottery, for example, which is testified in the bay of Naples from the beginning of the 4th century (or before) and in Allifae in northern Campania, suggests a steady vitality of the system of nundinae, through which foodstuffs and ceramics circulated.