From the kilns to the fair: producing building materials at Faragola and Canusium (northern Apulia, Italy)

Faragola and Canusium potters used Ca-rich clays—widely available nearby—for the production of build- ing materials. The clayey materials were used as received, before being fired in the local kilns at temperatures between 600 and ~1000 ° C. No technological distinctions were made in relation to the type of object to be produced (tile, brick, etc). The investigated productions are compositionally distinguish- able from both coarse wares for cooking and fine table ware produced in the same archaeological sites. A fine clayey ma- terial, very similar to that used for table ware, was supplied for the production of these building materials, which are chemi- cally, mineralogically and petrographically very similar among themselves. Hence, the Faragola and Canusium bricks and tiles cannot be easily discriminated but the presence/ absence of volcanites and volcanic glass represents an effec- tive discriminating factor, able to indicate areas of different supplies within two main deposits: the Pleistocene marine and alluvial terraced deposits, typical of northern Apulia.