B 04

The case study deals with Etruscan mobility in the northern Apennine Mountains during the Iron Age (8th to 5th cent. BC). During this period, the Apennines served as a cultural contact zone connecting the Etruscan heartland (in the present-day Italian regions of Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria) with the Po Valley (present-day Emilia-Romagna). Here, many important natural and economic resources for the local communities that settled between the rivers Po, in the north, and Arno, in the south, were available. Important places of worship, where people of different origins, languages and cultural and social identities met, developed at the infrastructural nodes of the route network in the mountains as well as in the neighbouring hill ranges. In order to better understand the ResourceCultures of the region, the infrastructures of geographical networks as well as those of religious and social communication are examined in more detail. These infrastructures had an effect on the mobility of individuals, family groups and other groups, on resulting colonial and non-colonial encounters, and on the negotiation dynamics of local identities. Specifically, landscape archaeological analyses will be conducted at infrastructural nodes, as well as studies of three material genres: miniature ceramics, small bronze votive offerings and aes signatum. New data on infrastructural nodes that had a particular relevance for mobility (integration in the road network, visibility, water resources) will be collected through survey campaigns and GIS analyses. Miniature pottery and small votive bronzes were found in hundreds at cult sites near relevant natural resources (caves, water reservoirs, thermal springs). These as well as numerous ingots of aes signatum will be documented and archaeometrically analysed. In this way, some socio-cultural dynamics central to the mobility of the Etruscans and their neighbours, such as the sacralisation of resources, the transfer of knowledge concerning resources and the formation of collective cultural memory, will be recorded. These dynamics will be newly understood as part of a ResourceCulture of movements and encounters in the Iron Age Apennines.

In 1886, Elisabeth Nietzsche and her husband Bernhard Förster founded the anti-Semitic colony Nueva Germania in the heart of Paraguay. Up to 140 settler families participated in the plan to found a utopian settlement in seclusion, thus permanently leaving the German Empire due to social and political discontent. The government of war-ravaged Paraguay at the time supported immigration from Europe with subsidies, such as cheap land and livestock, to help rebuild the country.
After only a short time, the utopian dream was shattered. The flight from industrialisation and poverty into a rural idyll with 'Germanic' and vegetarian values collided with the harsh living conditions in an inhospitable region. Bernhard Förster died in 1889, presumably by suicide, and Nueva Germania could no longer be financed. Elisabeth Nietzsche left the settlement and the remaining families were left to fend for themselves.
This historical-archaeological research project examines the push and pull factors of this emigration case. The internal social relations of the settler families within the settlement as well as the relations with the indigenous population and the surrounding landscape will be illuminated. While the settlers brought with them their hopes, aspirations and ideology as an intangible resource, they soon had to adapt to local resources (soil, wildlife, water and building materials) and indigenous knowledge in order to survive. This change in perception and the use of local resources and those they brought with them shaped the settlement and continues to shape it today.
The intentions and plans of the founders are analysed on the basis of historical documents, photographs and maps from the early phase of the colony. Essential source material was identified through archival research at the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar and the Federal Archive in Berlin. The transcription and systematic evaluation of the written, cartographic and pictorial data will be implemented in a GIS – this will help to understand how the colony was planned and conceived.
With the support of the 'Paraguayan Ministry of Culture, archaeological fieldwork in Paraguay will be used to investigate the material legacies of the settlement (architecture, archaeological features, small finds). These traces of the lived space and the changes over time can provide information about the everyday life of the settlers and can be critically contrasted with the planning of the founders.
In addition, interviews with local residents will help to gather oral histories of the early years of the former colony and to understand the importance that today's residents attach to the cultural heritage of the former colony.
Further archaeological surveys and an excavation of historic plots will contribute to a better understanding of groups underrepresented in historical sources (settlers and indigenous families). The extent to which diachronic change in relationships with the above resources is reflected in archaeological features and historical records will be investigated.
During the first archaeological survey in March 2022, more than 40 historic plots have already been walked, preserving architectural and archaeological remains from the early phase of the former colony. Today, the heritage of the settlement is considered an intercultural success story and the origin of the domestication of yerba mate. Among other things, the community celebrates anniversaries and has established a museum on the history of the settlement.

Project partners:

Ruth Alison (Paraguay, heritage conservationist and archaeologist)
Dr. Jonatan Kurzwelly (University of Göttingen, cultural anthropologist)
Prof. Daniel Schavelzon (Argentina, archaeologist)
Alasdair Brooks (United Kingdom, archaeologist)

Public Relations:

Official statement of the Ministry of Culture:
 http://www.cultura.gov.py/2022/02/arqueologos-alemanes-iniciaran-trabajo-de-investigacion-sobre-los-colonos-del-siglo-xix-en-nueva-germania/
Official statement of the Ministry of Culture on Facebook:
 https://www.facebook.com/culturapy/posts/pfbid02jqpHq8h98ZWXvAFfKBhR86smk9hZhoELWNm3dNeaiduZPck95NSEFTxMftxkSEhM