Abstract

In the last few years the environment has constituted a themes of great interest in Europe and in the world, in the framework of the sustainable development of the territories. The relationship between humankind and environment is also essential in order to understand the history of the ancient civilizations. Nowadays, archaeology makes use of advanced methodologies and technologies aimed to the study, the knowledge and the reconstruction of the historical European and Mediterranean landscapes. In Italy, the great variety of different environmental conditions offers a meaningful opportunity for the study of the rural scenarios between the Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The settlement framework of the southern part of the Apulia region (Italy) results to be quite rich with regard to the Classical period, whereas it has been enhancing only during the last few years with regard to the Late Antiquity and the Medieval Age. In this region, that has been called Terra d'Otranto starting from the Middle Ages, some archaeological excavations in sample areas have revealed a more detailed and documented picture of the settlements in the territory and of its dynamic transformation. In this context, geophysics, archaeometry and virtual reality can found large application. In particular, with regard to the regional transformation dynamics of the settlements between Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, the archaeological site of Contrada Badia, placed north-west of today Cutrofiano (in the outskirts of Lecce) is of great interest. Here, an archaeological survey on an area of about 50 hectares has recorded the human frequentation of this area from Bronze Age to Middle Ages. More specifically, two interesting sites have been identified, placed on the two sides of a street leading to the modern town: the first one is deemed to be a rural settlement of the Imperial and Late Antiquity Age, whereas the second one seems to be the site of a medieval abbey. In order to characterize the expected buried structures (and partially already identified by means of aerial photography data) in both sites, a ground penetrating radar (GPR) prospecting has been scheduled and partially already done. The data have been gathered with a pulsed Ris-Hi mode system belonging to the Laboratory of Geophysics applied to Cultural Heritage of IBAM-CNR equipped with a double antenna at 200 and 600 MHz, and have been processed by means of the GPR-Slice software. The present work was carried out within the research project PRIN 2010-2011 (prot.2010H8WPKL-001), UR (CNR-IBAM ) "Innovative Methods for the Reconstruction of the Landscape of Terra d'Otranto between Late Antiquity and Middle Ages".

Autore Pugliese

• Leucci Giovanni , Giannotta Maria Teresa , Persico Raffaele

Tutti gli autori

• Giannotta M.T.; Leucci G.; Persico R.; Leo Imperiale M.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Non Disponibile

Anno di pubblicazione

2014

ISSN

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ISBN

9788897987031

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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