Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (4.1980/1983)

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Recent Archaeological Finds of Tilling Tools
and Fossil Ard Traces in Italy
Gaetano Form

The research carried out in recent years at
several sites in Italy has been rewarded by
finds having a very high interest for the
history of tilling tools.
The archaeological group “Desenzano”,
under the technical leadership of R. Perini,
promoted in 1977 and 1978 excavations at
Lavagnone, an ancient marsh near Desen-
zano (Brescia, Garda lake), which led to the
discovery, in 1977, of an interesting yoke,
and, in 1978, of a whole crook ard. The
length of the ard sole is 1 m, that of the beam
2 m (but it is incomplete). Alm long
handled stilt is inserted in the sole. The
archaeological layer to which the ard belongs
is dated to the beginning of the 2nd millen-
nium B.C. It pertains to a community of
about fifty families of pile-dwellers, who
lived in this marsh throughout almost a mil-
lennium. There is only a journalistic report
about this important find, published in “11
Giornale di Brescia” of 20th July 1978
(fig-1)-
In the excavation carried out in 1973 by
Perini at Carrera near Fiave (Trento), when
he tried to bring to light the remains of a
lake-hamlet, he found, on a road-bed of the
12th-l 1th century B.C., an ard of beech of
the “crook-ard” type without stilt. The
beam is 3.60 m long the sole 0. m long
(fig. 2). Probably it is an unused tool, as the
sole bears some sharp marks of hatchet
blows. General information about the lake-
hamlet of Carrera is to be found in Perini

(1972). It is to be noted that Carrera is not
far from Ledro of Trento, where, before the
Second World War, Battaglia. (1943) had dis-
covered the “Ledro ard”. Other ard compo-
nents of the Bronze Age have been found by
Perini in settlements of the same site. We
hope that Perini will soon make available the
documents of his important findings, by
publishing them.


Fig. 1. The ard found 1978 in Lavagnone near
Desenzano, Lake Garda. Dated to the beginning
of 2nd millennium B.C. Sketch from the news-
paper “Giornale di Brescia”.

Die 1978 in Lavagnone bei Desenzano am Garda-
see gefundene Ari. Datiert in den Anfang des
2. Jahrtausends v.Chr. Zeichnung in der Zeitung
»Giornale di Brescia«.

The finding of fossil ard-traces belonging
to the II layer (Eneolithic) of the prehistoric
settlement of Saint Martin de Corleans (Ao-
sta Valley; West Alps) is also meaningful.
The researchers are Mezzena and his co-
workers (1977) in the “Sovrintendenza alle