Stefano Campana

Seeing the Unseen. Geophysics and Landscape Archaeology

Selected Contents: List of lecturers List of students Program of the school Preface Introduction Acknowledgments Theoretical Section Field Work Section Author index Colour plates

Understanding Archaeological Landscapes: Steps Towards an Improved Integration of Survey Methods in the Reconstruction of Subsurface Sites in South Tuscany

The Department of Archaeology at Siena has been engaged for several decades in the testing of new methodologies, new approaches and new instruments for construction of the archaeological record. In relation to landscape archaeology and in particular with the South Tuscan landscapes the low level of visibility and heavy clay soils have directed us towards those techniques of remote sensing that leave a wide choice to the archaeologist in the periods for carrying out data capture. In particular we have begun to work on a systematic program of aerial survey, on Ikonos-2 and QuickBird-2 satellite imagery and on micro-digital terrain modelling using digital photogrammetry. On the ground our infra-site analysis has been improved by applying extensive magnetic survey, recently integrated with GPR survey; other gains have come from the systematic use of differential GPS and PDA devices. Along with the development of new technologies we have continued the study of historical aerial photographs and the use of field-walking survey, both of which still constitute, in our opinion, undeniably valuable sources for the archaeological study of ancient landscapes. The results that we have obtained are encouraging and show clearly the need to use integrated sources. Sourceintegration now represents the prime focus of our research. In an area like that of South Tuscany without this approach we foresee little possibility of obtaining results which will have a real effect on our understanding of the development of the landscape across time.

3D Recording and Total Archaeology: From Landscapes to Historical Buildings

The paper presents the experience and in particular two case studies of 3D recording undertaken by two laboratories of the University of Siena, Italy (LAP&T and LAAUM). The case studies focus respectively on landscape and on historical building recording. The paper describes the first step in a new approach to the documentation and interpretation of the archaeological record, discussing and emphasising the need to collect and analyse 3D documentation at different scales of detail: from artefact to landscape. As first result, this approach should improve the documentation of cultural contexts and therefore increase the opportunity to achieve archaeological understanding. The first part of the paper describes the contribution of LiDAR data in landscape analysis, underlining the importance of very accurate DTMs in geomorphological analysis and their influence on landscape archaeology. The geographical background is southern Tuscany and the Po Valley in northern Italy. At a completely different scale of detai...

Sensing Ruralscapes. Third-Wave Archaeological Survey in the Mediterranean Area

The present contribution discusses the so-called ‘third wave’ of archaeological survey, drawing attention to the wide gap between the development and implementation or archaeological research within townscapes as compared with rural landscapes in the Mediterranean area. The first part of the discussion summarises the development of landscape studies and survey methods during the last century, critically highlighting the outcomes and limitations of past experience. The paper then presents the initial results of the Emptyscapes Project, an interdisciplinary program of survey and interpretation work designed to stimulate changes in the way in which archaeologists, in Italy but also more generally within the Mediterranean world, study the archaeology of the rural countryside, moving from an essentially site-based approach to a truly landscape-scale perspective. The first results of the project have made it possible to challenge past landscape paradigms and to move towards a more complex and comprehensive understanding of a stretch of lowland rural landscape in southern Tuscany. In doing so the project has emphasised the extent to which choices about the methodological and technological framework of the work may to a certain extent predetermine the archaeological results and influence the archaeological questions that can be asked or answered.

Archaeological Landscapes: Past, Present and Future

Chapter 6 presents final reflections on the experience gained so far. The book’s aim has been to establish that it is possible to apply new and complementary strategies within landscape archaeology, and in doing so to seek answers to entirely new questions of great significant to our archaeological understanding of the past, not least in the open countryside. Developments of this kind, already achieving success in other parts of Europe, will in appropriate circumstances make exploration of the archaeological landscape in the longue duree a tangible and achievable concept even in the rather different environment of the Mediterranean world. That said, the encouraging results of two central-Italian case studies cannot stand as exemplars for the Mediterranean as a whole. The arguments must continue; we must remain open to new approaches; and new kinds of cooperation must be established if we are to face up successfully to the challenges that still remain.

Peopling ‘Empty’ Mediterranean Landscapes

Chapter 5 illustrates the results of a decade of intensive research in two blocks of the Italian countryside chosen for their natural and cultural characteristics and the availability of information from previous studies. The first involves a valley landscape in Southern Tuscany between the Etrusco-Roman city of Rusellae and the medieval town of Grosseto; here, a sample transect was selected for intensive geophysical prospection, field-walking survey and most recently small-scale excavation with the aim of identifying landscape transformations from the Iron Age to medieval times. The second study targeted the now-rural plateau that once hosted the ancient city of Veii, the largest and most powerful Etruscan city of its time, rivalling the growing power of Rome a mere 15 km away to the south.

Mapping, Data Integration and Interpretation

Chapter 4 turns attention to the mapping process that is so fundamental in archaeological research. The creation of archaeological cartography requires specific technical skills, as do other archaeological activities such as excavation. Moreover, archaeological maps express the outcome of a complex and delicate process of interpretation by which data derived from any kind of direct or indirect source can become transformed into a carefully described and assessed archaeological record. This is a fundamental archaeological activity, calling on and reconciling a wide variety of personal attributes and acquired skills: knowledge and understanding from the whole of the researcher’s career, powers and techniques of observation, the exercise of intuition and imagination, and the fruits of continuing practical experience.

Recording Continuity: Integrating ‘New’ and ‘Old’ Research Methods

Chapter 3 focuses on recent experience and case histories that suggest an initial set of methodologies specifically relevant to the analysis of issues at the ‘local’ level–the scale at which human societies most commonly operate. In the future, it is argued, a re-formulated approach to collection of the essential source evidence should involve a combined and interactive application of both ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ methods of investigation, notably documentary research, field-walking survey and artefact collection, aerial photography and lidar imaging, large-scale geophysical prospection, geoarchaeology, bioarchaeology and targeted small-scale excavation.

Conceptualising the ‘Archaeological Continuum’

Chapter 2 introduces the concept of continuity within the landscapes of the past, discussing the development of ideas about the meaning and mutual relationships of the terms ‘site’ and ‘landscape’ within concerted efforts to develop a methodological framework that would enable research to move away from traditional ‘site-based’ archaeology towards a more genuine focus on a ‘landscape’ scale of investigation and interpretation. It is argued that what we should be seeking, within the limits of practicality and with as few spatial and chronological gaps as possible, is the capacity to analyse physical, cultural, social and in some cases even political interrelationships in space and time across significant sample areas of intensively studied landscape.

Mapping the Archaeological Continuum

Chapter 1 focuses on the state-of-the-art in archaeological survey around the Mediterranean, highlighting the gap between the development and application of archaeological research in urban and formerly-urban areas as compared with the less often explored challenges of the open countryside. Starting with the development of landscape studies and survey methods over the past hundred years, the chapter highlights the achievements and shortcomings of work in this field, especially within Italy. It does not, however, gloss over the problems that still remain. The final part of the chapter turns to the key issues of the present day, emphasizing that progressive advances in the available investigative tools, and in the overall methodological framework, have still to overcome significant endemic problems in the pursuit of this field of research. 1.1 The State of the Art Architecture and urbanism in the ancient cities of the Mediterranean lend themselves very well to investigation. Urbanized societies have been characteristic of most of the Mediterranean region from at least the later part of the fourth millennium BC in the Levant, from around 2000 BC in the Aegean, and for the last two-and-a-half millennia in the rest of the Mediterranean area. In Roman times, there were as many as 430 known urban centres dotted across the whole of the Italian peninsula, along with thousands of cities scattered elsewhere throughout the empire. There has been much debate about the relationship between city and countryside, along with a recognition that the cities themselves represented crucial focal points within the landscape, characterized by a complex social, economic and political background (Whitelaw 2013). Moreover, by virtue of their historical and monumental importance, combined with their artistic value and easy accessibility, the ruined remains of ancient structures around the Mediterranean have always attracted fascination and study. By contrast,