The ground visibility of the terrain that is surveyed has a clear impact on detecting archaeological finds. Because the resulting distortions may influence the quality of the interpretation of... Show moreThe ground visibility of the terrain that is surveyed has a clear impact on detecting archaeological finds. Because the resulting distortions may influence the quality of the interpretation of single settlements and settlement patterns, various checks of the terrain and the collected data are needed. Therefore, in current survey projects different types of tests and data filtering are increasingly implemented both in the field and in the laboratory as a part of their methodology. However, some of the most important archaeological landscape projects were initiated long before an agreement on a standard methodology for field survey was reached. As a result, legacy datasets have been deemed to be of little value to present-day scholarship due to the current research standards. In this paper, we examine if legacy data can be useful to contemporary research by performing a study comparing legacy data collected by the Forma Italiae survey project to contemporary data collected by the LERC project. The Forma Italiae survey project was carried out in the late 20th century and produced a large dataset of archaeological sites in the area around the ancient town of Venusia (located in Southern Italy). We first analyzed the relationship between surface visibility and the density of identified Hellenistic-period sites by means of a statistical analysis, and then tested the reliability of the legacy site patterns by comparing them with new data recovered from the field in a recent re-survey of this region by our team as a part of the LERC project. We thus assessed the compatibility of the clustered pattern of sites detected by the Forma Italiae and the new LERC field surveys. At odds with more pessimistic estimations, we conclude that on the regional level and coarse scale of analysis the legacy survey data is representative and offers significant evidence to current scholarship for the study of ancient settlement patterns. Show less
This paper investigates the settlement developments of the landscape around the ancient town of Venusia in southern Italy using legacy field survey data. A Latin colony was established here in 291... Show moreThis paper investigates the settlement developments of the landscape around the ancient town of Venusia in southern Italy using legacy field survey data. A Latin colony was established here in 291 BC and also other subsequent Roman colonization movements are known from the literary sources. As in many other Roman colonial landscapes, trends in the settlement data of Venusia have previously been linked to the impact of Roman colonization, which is usually understood as a drastic transformation of the pre-Roman settlement landscape and land use. Rather than using theories on Roman colonial strategies for explaining possible settlement patterns (deductive approach), this paper presents an alternative, descriptive, bottom-up approach, and GIS-based inductive location preference analysis to investigate how the settlement landscape evolved in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (particularly in the fourth–first century BC). Following closely the settlement choices from the pre-Roman conquest period onwards and assessing patterns in continuity and change in the settlement record, we demonstrate that pre-Roman rural settlement and land use strategies were not eradicated but instead strongly determined the location preferences for later settlements in the “colonial” periods. If these settlement trends can be related at all to the colonization waves mentioned in the ancient literary sources, the conclusion should be that Roman colonization did not lead to radical landscape and land use transformations, as has traditionally been suggested. Instead, an organic and complementary rural infill over time is documented, in which cultural factors instead of land use potential played a key role. Show less
This paper addresses the value of re-surveys in two different regions with different cultural and landscape formation histories: the Upper Volturno basin in Molise (the hinterland of the colony of... Show moreThis paper addresses the value of re-surveys in two different regions with different cultural and landscape formation histories: the Upper Volturno basin in Molise (the hinterland of the colony of Aesernia, modern Isernia), and the Melfese area in Basilicata (the hinterland of the colony of Venusia, modern Venosa). In these areas, we compare legacy datasets with newly acquired survey data in the same areas, and compare the results by means of statistics (Chi-square) and visual exploration (cartographical and GIS-based analysis). The statistical comparisons of these different surveys show that site numbers may change significantly. This paper explores the reasons for these dynamics in the archaeological surface record by focussing especially on landscape changes. Show less
Archaeological field survey data can be biased by many factors, such as ground visibility conditions (e.g. vegetation, plowing) and geomorphological processes (erosion, deposition). Both visibility... Show moreArchaeological field survey data can be biased by many factors, such as ground visibility conditions (e.g. vegetation, plowing) and geomorphological processes (erosion, deposition). Both visibility and geomorphological factors need, therefore, to be assessed when patterns of settlement and location preferences are inferred from survey data. Although both factors have been taken into account in a variety of fieldwork projects and studies, their combined effects remain hard to predict. In this paper, we aim to address this issue by presenting a visualization method that helps in evaluating in combination the possible visibility and geomorphological effects in regional, site‐oriented field surveys. Capitalizing on first‐hand data on both archaeology and soil types produced by the recent Leiden University field survey project in the area of Isernia (Roman Aesernia, Central‐Southern Italy), we propose a combined application of statistical tests and geo‐pedological analysis to assess the extent and scale of the main biases possibly affecting the interpretation of the ancient settlement organization. Translating both sets of biases into GIS maps, we indicate the likelihood that negative field survey observations (absence of sites), in specific parts of the landscape, are genuine or rather distorted by biasing factors. The resulting “archaeological detectability” maps allow researchers to formally highlight critical surveyed zones where the recording of evidence is likely unreliable, and thus provide a filter through which archaeologists can calibrate their interpretations of field survey datasets. Show less
This paper examines settlement density and settlement patterns in the Roman colonial territories of Venusia, Cosa and Aesernia, located in three different landscapes of central southern Italy ... Show moreThis paper examines settlement density and settlement patterns in the Roman colonial territories of Venusia, Cosa and Aesernia, located in three different landscapes of central southern Italy (modern Basilicata, Tuscany and Molise). Using a series of GIS tools, we conducted a comparative analysis of the density and spatial distribution of sites dating to the Hellenistic period (ca. 350–50 b.c.). We used the legacy settlement data collected by previous large-scale, intensive, site-oriented field surveys to test the validity of two competing rural settlement models of early Roman colonization: the conventional model of neatly organized settlements regularly dispersed across the landscape and the recently proposed theory that colonists adopted a polynuclear settlement strategy. After calculating the extent to which the archaeological datasets conform to the regular or polynuclear model, we conclude that only a very small portion of the colonized areas actually meets traditional expectations regarding the organization of early colonial settlements. Our analyses show that the legacy survey data is more consistent with the polynuclear settlement theory, but the data also reveals some completely unexpected patterns, suggesting that early Roman colonial landscapes were more diverse than previously thought. Show less
