Research Article Limestone Provenance in Roman Lime-Volcanic Ash Mortars from the Villa dei Quintili, Rome Giusj Valentina Fichera, 1, * Cristina Maria Belfiore, 1,2 Mauro Francesco La Russa, 2 Silvestro Antonio Ruffolo, 2 Donatella Barca, 2 Riccardo Frontoni, 3 Giuliana Galli, 3 and Antonino Pezzino 1 1 Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali—Sezione di Scienze della Terra, Universit ` a di Catania, Catania, Italy 2 Dipartimento di Biologia, Ecologia e Scienze della Terra (DIBEST), Universit ` a della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende (Cs), Italy 3 Archaeologist Assistant Scientific Director, Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma, Villa dei Quintili, Roma, Italy Correspondence * Corresponding author; E-mail: giusjfichera@gmail.com Received 9 December 2013 Revised 21 July 2014 Accepted 29 July 2014 Scientific editing by Panagiotis Karkanas Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). doi 10.1002/gea.21504 Roman mortars were collected from the Villa dei Quintili in Rome, an archaeo- logical site consisting of numerous edifices from nine construction phases dat- ing from the 2nd century A.D. to modern times. A multianalytical approach was used on 34 mortar samples to infer the evolution of production techniques over time and to identify the source area of calcareous raw materials used in the preparation of the lime. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with an energy-dispersive system, and laser ablation inductively cou- pled plasma mass spectrometry were used to study the samples. The major and trace element data were compared with the compositions of two types of lime- stone samples (Calcare Massiccio and Calcare Maiolica) collected from the Cor- nicolani Mountains. The results suggest that the technological practices and the calcareous raw materials used for lime production remained unchanged over the time period considered (2nd century A.D. to 3rd century A.D.). The compositions of lime-related particles in the mortars match those of Calcare Maiolica, which suggests its use as raw material for lime production. On the whole, the results are in agreement with data from existing literature regard- ing both the use by Roman builders of specific raw materials for the mortars’ production and the relative supply area. C  2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. INTRODUCTION Mortars are one of the most important artificial building materials due to their many applications in construction. Their use in masonry structures has been widespread in Italy since Roman times (Collepardi, 2003; Pecchioni, Fratini, & Cantisani, 2008). The mortars used by an- cient Roman builders have retained excellent durability and strength even after approximately 2000 years due to the high levels of technology achieved by the Romans, who had extensive experience and knowledge of the lo- cal construction materials. For this reason, historical Ro- man mortars have been the subject of numerous archaeo- metric studies (e.g., Jackson et al., 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011; S ´ anchez-Moral et al., 2005; Silva, Wenk, & Monteiro, 2005; Jackson & Marra, 2006; Gotti et al., 2008; Peruccio & Brune, 2009). Most of these studies focused on characterizing the two main components of mortars, namely cementitious binding matrix and aggre- gate, to investigate their mineralogical and petrographic features and identify the production technologies used by ancient builders (Jackson et al., 2007, 2010, 2011; Pav´ ıa, 2008; Pavia & Caro, 2008; Miriello et al., 2010, 2011; Lancaster et al., 2011; Fichera et al., 2012; Belfiore et al., 2014). This paper deals with the study of several Roman mor- tars collected from a monumental complex known as Villa dei Quintili in Rome (Figure 1). Specifically, here we focus on the compositional features of the matrixes and the lime-related components. The volcanic aggregate fraction of the same mortars is the subject of a recent pa- per by Belfiore et al. (2014). The archaeological site of Villa dei Quintili extends from the Appia Nuova to the Ap- pia Antica; the latter was one of the most important roads in Rome because it represented the main military and trade route that connected Rome to Capua (Paris, 2000). The villa is an important imperial complex that was con- structed at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. Its Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 30 (2015) 79–99 Copyright C  2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 79