Meaningful Exchange: Interpreting the Archaeological Coin Record of Republican Italy
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This dissertation examines the cultural and social dimensions of coin use and deposition in Republican Italy through the lens of archaeological coin finds. By considering that some coins recovered from settlement excavations as single finds may have originally entered the archaeological record as intentional depositions or intentional discards as opposed to just as accidental losses, it is possible to investigate a wider range of their plausible meanings, uses, and values within a defined historical context. In doing so, this dissertation builds on recent contextual, comparative, and case study-based research in archaeological numismatics through the formulation of case studies determined by material composition: heavy base metal coins (weighing 30 grams or heavier), silver coins, and silver-plated coins. Two hundred and forty coins belonging to these three groups were collated for this dissertation from seven published archaeological coin assemblages recovered from five settlement sites in central and southern Italy. These selected coins were then subjected to several object- and contextual analyses before interpretations were offered for each coin. For one site, these analyses and interpretations were aided by the consultation of unpublished archival materials held in the Cosa Archaeological Archive at the American Academy in Rome. What emerges from these collective analyses is a remarkably heterogenous picture of coin use and deposition in Republican Italy that deepens our understanding of the central but varied role of coins in the Roman world as the Roman state was expanding its power in the Mediterranean during the fourth to first centuries BCE.