This volume in the Institute of Classical Archaeology's series on rural settlements in the countryside (chora) of Metaponto presents the excavation of the Late Roman farmhouse at San Biagio. Located near the site of an earlier Greek sanctuary, this modest but well-appointed structure was an unexpected find from a period generally marked by large landholdings and monumental villas. Description of earlier periods of occupation (Neolithic and Greek) is followed by a detailed discussion of the farmhouse itself and its historical and socioeconomic context. The catalogs and analyses of finds include impressive deposits of coins from the late third and early fourth centuries AD. Use of virtual reality CAD software has yielded a deeper understanding of the architectural structure and its reconstruction. A remarkable feature is the small bath complex, with its examples of window glass. This study reveals the existence of a small but viable rural social and economic entity and alternative to the traditional image of crisis and decline during the Late Imperial period.

This volume in the Institute of Classical Archaeology’s series on rural settlements in the countryside (chora) of Metaponto is a study of the fourth-century BC farmhouse known as Fattoria Fabrizio, located in the heart of the surveyed chora in the Venella valley (at Ponte Fabrizio). This simple structure richly illustrates the life of fourth-century BC Metapontine farmers of modest means.

Thorough interpretations of the farmhouse structure in its wider historical and socioeconomic contexts are accompanied by comprehensive analyses of the archaeological finds. Among them is detailed evidence for the family cult, a rare archaeological contribution to the study of Greek religion in Magna Grecia. The entire range of local Greek ceramics has been studied, along with a limited number of imports. Together they reveal networks within the chora and trade beyond it, involving indigenous peoples of southern Italy, mainland Greeks, and the wider Mediterranean world. Along with the studies of traditional archaeological finds, archaeobotanical analyses have illuminated the rural economy of the farmhouse and the environment of the adjacent chora. Abundant Archaic pottery also documents an important occupation, during the first great flowering of the chora in the sixth century BC. This study provides an ideal complement to the four volumes of The Chora of Metaponto 3: Archaeological Field Survey—Bradano to Basento and an eloquent example of hundreds of farmhouses of this date identified throughout the chora by their surface remains alone.

The sixth volume in the Institute of Classical Archaeology’s series on the rural countryside (chora) of Metaponto is a study of the Greek settlement at Sant’Angelo Vecchio. Located on a slope overlooking the Basento River, the site illustrates the extraordinary variety of settlements and uses of the territory from prehistory through the current day. Excavators brought to light a Late Archaic farmhouse, evidence of a sanctuary near a spring, and a cluster of eight burials of the mid-fifth century BC, but the most impressive remains belong to a production area with kilns. Active in the Hellenistic, Late Republican, and Early Imperial periods, these kilns illuminate important and lesser-known features of production in the chora of a Greek city and also chronicle the occupation of the territory in these periods.

The thorough, diachronic presentation of the evidence from Sant’Angelo Vecchio is complemented by specialist studies on the environment, landscape, and artifacts, which date from prehistory to the post-medieval period. Significantly, the evidence spans the range of Greek site types (farmhouse, necropolis, sanctuary, and production center) as well as the Greek dates (from the Archaic to Early Imperial periods) highlighted during ICA’s survey of the Metapontine chora. In this regard, Chora 6 enhances the four volumes of The Chora of Metaponto 3: Archaeological Field Survey—Bradano to Basento and provides further insight into how sites in the chora interacted throughout its history.

Friends of the Dallas Public Library Award, 2006
Best Book on East Texas, East Texas Historical Association, 2007

In the decades following the Civil War, nearly a quarter of African Americans achieved a remarkable victory—they got their own land. While other ex-slaves and many poor whites became trapped in the exploitative sharecropping system, these independence-seeking individuals settled on pockets of unclaimed land that had been deemed too poor for farming and turned them into successful family farms. In these self-sufficient rural communities, often known as "freedom colonies," African Americans created a refuge from the discrimination and violence that routinely limited the opportunities of blacks in the Jim Crow South.

Freedom Colonies is the first book to tell the story of these independent African American settlements. Thad Sitton and James Conrad focus on communities in Texas, where blacks achieved a higher percentage of land ownership than in any other state of the Deep South. The authors draw on a vast reservoir of ex-slave narratives, oral histories, written memoirs, and public records to describe how the freedom colonies formed and to recreate the lifeways of African Americans who made their living by farming or in skilled trades such as milling and blacksmithing. They also uncover the forces that led to the decline of the communities from the 1930s onward, including economic hard times and the greed of whites who found legal and illegal means of taking black-owned land. And they visit some of the remaining communities to discover how their independent way of life endures into the twenty-first century.

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Leonard Friesen presents a study of the transformation of New Russia--the region north of the Black and Azov seas--from its conquest by the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century to the revolutionary tumult of 1905. Friesen is particularly interested in the dynamic and multifaceted relations between the region's peasants, European colonists, and Russian estate owners. He gives special attention to the settlement process whereby once free peasants were enserfed within a generation, as well as the period of servile emancipation after 1861, when the paths of the region's agriculturalists converged in unexpected ways. Overall, Friesen sees the region as vital to an understanding of the empire as a whole. He demonstrates how peasants, nobles, and estate owners were key actors in a series of rural revolutions that eventually threatened the empire itself.

This book contributes to our understanding of Imperial Russia, as well as contemporary Ukraine, by describing and analyzing rural developmental patterns over time. It explores how, when, and why agriculturalists made adjustments to long-established agrarian and social practices, and provides a fresh perspective on the link between the end of empire and the rural developments that preceded it.