MAPPA Project. Methodologies Applied to Archaeological Potential Predictivity (original) (raw)
Related papers
Pisa in the Middle Ages: archaeology, spatial analysis and predictive modeling
2014
This volume represents the third edition of a work cycle that started in 2006 for my PhD thesis. The thesis was presented in 2010 (first edition, GATTIGLIA 2010), partially published as a summary monograph in 2011 (second edition, GATTIGLIA 2011) or in articles (GATTIGLIA 2012, GATTIGLIA 2012a, GATTIGLIA G. 2011a), and now (third edition) takes the form of a more comprehensive publication in the light of new data. Over the past two years, the work study on Pisa, not only relating to the Middle Ages, continued within the MAPPA (Metodologie Applicate alla Predittività del Potenziale – Methodologies Applied to Archaeological Potential Predictivity) project, allowing a widespread collection of data thanks to which it was possible to explain more fully the hydrogeological, geomorphological and topographic context and to check (and in many cases change) part of the assumptions made. Archaeology, albeit slowly, is moving towards Big Data, i.e. enormous amounts of machine readable data, continuously produced , which can modify theories, conclusions and assumptions at any time and develop new applications for archaeology. We no longer live in an age in which printed texts have a long life cycle before becoming outdated; new data are enough today to contradict or validate the assumptions made. Archaeology is closer and closer to science, not only because it uses scientific analysis methods but because it is based on falsifiable hypotheses, to put it as Popper would say. For this reason, the data analysed here are published as open data on the MOD (ANICHINI et alii 2013) (the open data archive of Italian archaeology www.mappaproject.org/mod) or as searchable data on MAPPA Web GIS (MAPPAgis www.mappaproject.org/webgis). In this first introductory chapter, the history of urban archaeology in Pisa will be briefly presented. The second chapter will provide a broad outline of the territorial context and the landscape. The rivers and marshy areas will be analysed in order to understand how the environment influenced the development of the medieval city for better or for worse. Since man was not a passive responder to these events, the study of the port system and road networks will help understand which solutions were taken to draw the geographical benefits and generate economic and commercial profits. The third and last chapter is divided into two parts. The first part will illustrate the great urban transformations throughout the period ranging from the end of the Roman Age (VI century) to the Florentine conquest (start of the XV century). Although it is still difficult to have a clear picture of the Roman and early-medieval urban design of Pisa, it is nevertheless possible to understand some of its nodal points, to interpret the city’s development during the middle years of the Middle Ages and to analyse what happened during the transition that led to the modern city. The second part will deal with the material traces, i.e. the archaeological sources that allowed us to recover pieces of history and build the overall picture. Excavation data will provide information about the buildings, roads, workshops and craft laboratories, waste disposal and water supply systems, and on the wealth and social status of the city’s inhabitants.
After defining the area of investigation, the methods used for acquiring new data will be described. The archaeologists will address the problems encountered with the archives and the status of documentation, the sedimentologists will identify the areas for continuous coring, whilst the geomorphologists will base their analyses on micro-relief, photointerpretation and remote sensing techniques. Finally, the mathematicians will describe the classic page rank model, adapted to the determination of archaeological potential.
Opening the Past 2013. Archaeology of the Future, Preatti del convegno (Pisa 13-14-15/06/2013), MapPapers 1-III, 2013, pp. 1-86 (doi: 10.4456/MAPPA.2013.17) = F. Anichini, Bini M., Dubbini N., Fabiani F., Gattiglia G., Ghizzani Marcìa F., Gualandi M.L. (a cura di), MapPapers, 4, Roma., 2013
MAPPA. Methodologies Applied to Archaeological Potential Predictivity
2012
"The fruitful cooperation over the years between the university teaching staff of Pisa University, the officials of the Superintendency for Archaeological Heritage of Tuscany, the officials of the Superintendency for Architectural, Landscape and Ethno‐anthropological Heritage for the Provinces of Pisa and Livorno, and the Municipality of Pisa has favoured a great deal of research on issues regarding archaeological heritage and the reconstruction of the environmental and landscape context in which Pisa has evolved throughout the centuries of its history. The desire to merge this remarkable know‐how into an organic framework and, above all the wish to provide Pisa with a Map of archaeological potential (the research, protection and urban planning tool capable of converging the heritage protection needs of the remains of the past with the development requirements of the future) led to the development of the MAPPA project ‐ Methodologies applied to archaeological potential predictivity. The first year of research was dedicated to achieving the first objective, that is, to retrieving the results of archaeological investigations and to making them easily accessible; these results have often never been published or have often been published incompletely and very slowly. For this reason, a webGIS (“MappaGIS” that may freely accessed at http://mappaproject.arch.unipi.it/?page\_id=452) was created and will be followed by a MOD (Mappa Open Data archaeological archive), the first Italian archive of open archaeological data, in line with European directives regarding access to Public Administration data and recently implemented by the Italian government also (the archive can be viewed at http://mappaproject.arch.unipi.it/?page\_id=454). Details are given in this first volume about the operational decisions that led to the creation of the webGIS: the software used, the system architecture, the organisation of information and its structuring into various information layers. But not only. The creation of the webGIS also gave us the opportunity to focus on a series of considerations alongside the work carried out by the MAPPA Laboratory researchers. We took the decision to publish these considerations with a view to promoting debate within the scientific community and, more in general, within the professional categories involved (e.g. public administrators, university researchers, professional archaeologists). This allowed us to overcome the critical aspects that emerged, such as the need to update the archaeological excavation documentation and data archiving systems in order to adjust them to the new standards provided by IT development; most of all, the need for greater and more rapid spreading of information, without which research cannot truly progress. Indeed, it is by comparing and connecting new data in every possible and, at times, unexpected way that research can truly thrive.
J-Reading - Journal of Research and Didactics in Geography, North America, 2, Dec. 2018., 2018
The development of a traditional urban Archaeological Map, an essential tool to provide a synoptic framework of the knowledge acquired so far, implies the idea of a final product and by now, for this very same reason, it can be considered outdated. It must give way to a far more complex analysis and to the elaboration of a tool useful not only to map the existing phenomena, but also for the study of the land transformation history. The goal is to analyze and then elaborate potential new knowledge based on the predictability of interred resources. Such an approach is in perfect harmony with Preventive Archaeology’s latest rules and aims to overcome the concept of “Map of Risk” in favour of a “Map of Archaeological Potential”. This will allow: the organization of the urban planning and building choices; the minimization of the archaeological site investigations carried out in an emergency; reduced damage to the public economy. At the same time, it will foster the planning of scientific research and help to conceive the buried archaeological heritage as a resource.The present project proposes the elaboration of the first archaeological map of the city of Enna through GIS, an instrument which proved to be ideal, especially for the purpose of the difficult reconstruction of ancient urban topography and, therefore, of an assessment of potential buried archaeological sites.
This paper presents the research method applied to the Archaeological Map of Italy -Forma Italiae project, comprising to date the Ager Venusinus project (completed) and the Ager Lucerinus project (ongoing). The methodology of the project is based on the extensive and systematic survey of the entire selected district. The countryside is systematically searched by groups of students and researchers in different seasons, time of the day, weather and visibility conditions, and status of cultivation of the ground. The GPS georeferenced data are integrated in a GIS specifically realised. The results of the research projects relating to the territory of the Luceria's colony, in Apulia, starting from the area of the medieval site of Montecorvino, in the Daunian district is presented. So far the part of the vast territory of Lucera studied concerns the area North-East of the ancient Latin colony. Discussed here are studies conducted on the western area, towards the Daunian subappennine and in particular focused on the territory of the municipalities of Lucera, Pietramontecorvino, Motta Montecorvino, and Volturino. This area, in fact, is the object of research that includes the whole of the Fortore River valley. The data emerging from recent surveys show a large population over the time-span from prehistory to the High Middle Ages. The settlements of the Neolithic and Bronze ages, so far identified, are placed on vast plains; on the northern sector of the territory, it is possible to catch a glimpse of traces of a village characterised by the typical C shaped ditch, with huts located inside. A very interesting part of our project regards Dauni and Samnite settlements in the period preceding the arrival of the Romans and the Romanisation of the area. The most notable transformations in the ancient landscape were undoubtedly produced by the Roman intervention that gave birth to the new colony and the planning of the village centre, which consequently led to the reorganisation of a vast territory and the division of the rural area into a dense network of small properties assigned to the settlers.
GIS applications for the archaeological analysis of a medieval town: Pisa, Italy
Archeologia e Calcolatori, 2012
The main use of GIS in archaeology is connected to regional research or management of excavation data sets. The use of GIS for urban archaeological research is far less extensive. The urban GIS about the medieval town of Pisa contains all archaeological data from occasional findings to modern stratigraphic excavations, geographical data, historical cartography data and urban data, each described by the geometrical shape (point, line, polygon) that best represents each feature. The distinguishing environmental context to which the town is connected is characterized by a complex hydrographic system; GIS analysis enabled us to study the relationships between the urban transformations and the surrounding environment. The article explains how geostatistical analysis allowed us to create a model of the ancient landscape and how the use of map algebra was useful in understanding the medieval environment. The difficulty in finding raw archaeological data, that is, all the excavation and fieldwork recording (planning of context, context recording sheet, photographs, findings quantification sheet), suggested the necessity to create an open digital archive and to provide possible standardization of digital formats, metadata records and archaeological data recording, so as to allow a comparison between the data.