Since January 2002, as part of the CRAFTS project launched by the Instrumentum/SEMANT association, a multidisciplinary team financed by the Swiss National Fund is collecting all the available evidence for Roman craft industry in Switzerland. This survey is necessary to provide a framework for analysis and comparison of the structure, economic role and social position of the craftsmen in the Roman period in Italy and the western provinces. To illustrate work in progress four cases are presented, chosen amongst the already known craft industries in a rural environment : the craft industry in villas on the Swiss plateau, the state of research in Alpine areas, the production of preserved meat, and stone and iron working on the site of Châbles-Les Saux. These four cases involve no less than eight craft industries : building, bronze and iron working, pottery production, working of rock crystal and sandstone, potstone and meat treatment.
Traduction de Thérèse Matterne et Mike Ilett