2) Valentino Vitale 2017. SoGEArch - Archaeology, Topography and Geology

Archaeology & Anthropology: Open Access, 2017

2021

The IsoArcH Open Science in Archaeology event took place on the 20th of May. This overview presents a brief overview of the main takeaways of the event (1-IsoArcH-Event_Summary), the programme (2-IsoArcH-Event_Programme), as well as the slides used by the speakers (3-7).

In history and prehistory artefacts and structures are often concealed beneath the surface of the earth as a result of geological processes and perhaps more frequently as a result of human activity. A key aspect of landscape archaeology lies in the identification and interpretation of this hidden evidence or in the broader sense of the buried landscape. Recent decades have seen landscape archaeologists concentrating mainly on the collection of vast numbers of sites, for the most part in isolation from one another. We might call this a site-based approach. But neither present-day nor past landscapes consist only of houses, settlements, cemeteries, industrial areas and the like. More recently archaeologists have become aware that there is a great range of evidence (on-site as well off-site or non-site), from scatters of artefacts to road systems, plough-marks and field boundaries, that can provide important information, not only about human exploitation of the environment but also about cultural, social and economic developments. This has created a ‘new’ challenge. We are called to face the inherent complexity of landscapes and their internal relationships—often hidden beneath or between ‘sites’ and for the most part represented by relatively ‘weak’ evidence. We might call this a landscape-based approach. The site-based approach has produced limited results in landscape terms, not least because the main investigative method has been restricted to surface collection. Reconnaissance survey of this kind is of course essential, and can be very productive, but like every other method it has its limitations. We would point particularly to its inadequacies in the identification of structures, features, chronological phases and social groupings. It goes without saying that some archaeological phases are more readily ‘visible’ than others and that some cultures, such as those of mobile hunter-gatherers or pastoralists, leave a very different imprint on the landscape than those of agricultural or urban societies. It is equally obvious that surface artefact collection allows us to recognise only a small range of the potentially available evidence. In Mediterranean landscapes, for instance, the definable site typologies are limited to such things as ‘grave’, ‘farm’, ‘roman villa’, ‘industrial area’, ‘off-site finds’ etc. On the basis of reconnaissance survey it is virtually impossible to collect a wider range of evidence or to achieve a more precise and detailed classification of site typology. We are in no sense averse to field-walking survey, which we see as probably the best available method in regional studies for detecting sites that produce surface evidence in the form of artefact scatters, building material and the like. We are, on the other hand, convinced that the limitations of each and every research method should be openly acknowledged. It is our contention that without the integration of a variety of information-recovery techniques we cannot begin to confront and comprehend the inherent complexity of past landscapes. Remote sensing, and in particular aerial reconnaissance, can play a crucial role in the discovery, recording, interpretation and monitoring of sites. Satellite imagery, airborne scanning (multi-spectral, LiDAR), vertical air photography and exploratory aerial survey have developed into some of the archaeologist’s most valued tools. But, just like field-walking survey, these sources and techniques have their own particular limitations—LiDAR and multi-spectral sensors, for instance, each pose different kinds of problems. Post-depositional processes can also affect the results because of thickness, weakness and size of evidence. And with all techniques there is also the imponderable affect of ‘serendipity’—good fortune (or otherwise) in the local situation or in the luck of the moment. Any non-destructive method capable of reducing or offsetting the uncertainness of field-walking survey, trial excavation or the varying capacities of different types of remote sensing should be greeted with open arms by archaeologists if it leads to an increased probability of informationrecovery. One such method, now the subject of new or revived attention, is near-surface geophysical survey. In recent years a wide range of scientific disciplines have provided useful tools for an integrated approach to data-collection, interpretation and conservation in the field of the cultural heritage. In this context archaeological prospection presents a whole range of non-invasive techniques, including various kinds of geophysical survey, satellite imagery and aerial photography, as well as a variety of digital site-recording systems and numerical techniques for processing, analysing and representing the different data-sets that can be collected through ground-based survey. The last twenty years have seen great technological advances in these non-invasive methods. New instruments, data-acquisition techniques, geophysical methods and processing strategies have made the fieldwork much faster, more sophisticated and more effective. From a site-based outlook, geophysical prospection increases the visibility of features but also greatly enhances the complexity and sophistication of site interpretation, providing high-resolution maps of the subsoil—not merely the surface—and, depending on the technique applied, even maps at different depths. The capacity to see the sub-surface pattern of archaeological features makes it possible to refine the generalised types of site classification achievable through traditional field survey, and gives the opportunity to draw a wider variety of conclusions about questions of cultural, social and economic background. Equally important is the increase in the speed of measurement achieved by a small number of pioneer scholars—many of them represented in this volume—making it possible to move geophysical survey from a site-based to a landscape-based approach. This sort of perspective is not entirely new. We should recall, for instance, the extraordinary revelations of John Bradford on the Foggia plain in Apulia, Sothern Italy (Bradford 1957), where he discovered probably one of the most outstanding stratified landscapes visible from the air. Nearly sixty years ago he wrote in the British journal Antiquity: ‘We can now go towards peopling this landscape, not in a sand-table world of theory, but in a stetting of actual fields and farms which provide unrivalled opportunities for the direct study of roman agriculture” (Bradford 1949). But it must be recognised that it is the geological and land-use character of the Foggia plain, rather than its cultural pattern, that gives it an extremely high archaeological visibility when viewed from the air. The main innovation and advance offered by large-scale continuous geophysical survey within a landscape-based approach lies in the opportunity to overcome or circumvent the limitations of archaeological visibility caused by such things as clay soils, unfavourable land-use or unhelpful cultivation patterns— along, of course, with the ‘vagaries of the moment’ that affect the success or otherwise of aerial survey. Bradford said about the roman landscape on the Foggia plain: “Never before has the actual landscape of the Roman farmer, described in the Georgics, been better preserved for direct study. One can walk along the grassy roman roads from one farmstead to the next and enter up its ditchflanked drive bordered by vines or trees” (Bradford 1949). In the present day this could be said, too—despite inevitable cultural differences—about the Vale of Pickering in north-east England, studied over the past thirty years by Dominic Powlesland, another contributor to this volume. Of course we are not maintaining that geophysical prospection provides the ultimate panacea for the archaeologist concerned with the cultural heritage. In some ways it is, but like all other techniques it can fail in some circumstances to spot significant archaeology—features that are too small, too deeply buried or too weak in the signals or reflections that they produce. It is in our view fair to claim that the results achieved in the last decade through the development and application of geophysics should be acknowledged by the archaeological community as amongst the most important methodological changes of recent times. It is our hope that, through this book, these developments can be more fully understood by archaeologists, who often approach ‘new technology’ with a degree of suspicion. There is a striking paradox here. Archaeologists define society and the major phases of prehistory from an explicitly technological point of view: Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age etc. Moreover, the most important cultural revolutions in the history of humanity have been defined on the basis of technological developments: the introduction of agriculture, the Industrial Revolution and now the advent of computer science. How can we deny the extraordinary contribution of geophysical science, and more generally of technology, in the search for archaeological understanding?

2015

Archeomatica International, 2021

The 15th edition of the international conference ArcheoFOSS Open Software, hardware, processes, data, and formats in archaeology is now open. After the 2020’s conference is the second year in which the official conference languages are both English and Italian. The conference will address a range of important topics and themes relating to data sharing, open tools, processes and formats in the archaeological domain. The Organizing Committee invited scholars, independent researchers, institutions, freelance archaeologists, and professional companies involved in Cultural Heritage to submit their original researches or case studies by exposing the latest trends, theoretical or practical developments and challenges in the field. On behalf of the Scientific Committee 2021, the Organising Committee encouraged abstract proposals focused on some thematic areas. Furthermore, for the first time, ArcheoFOSS published the pre-acs volume to facilitate the sharing and the deep understanding of any issues.

Geologia dell'Ambiente SIGEA, 2012

The action of SIGEA Italian Society for Environmental Geology , after 1993, to promoting and sharing information about the geological heritage in Italy. As organizing 2th and 7th international symposium with ProGEO on the conservation of geological heritage and geosites, held at Bari, 24-28 september 2012. www.sigeaweb.it