Articles by Laura Burigana

The paper illustrates the creation and integration of the environment as a multilevel landscape in AMPBV Simulator, a spatial Agent-Based Model (ABM) developed in NetLogo programming language. The model was conceived with the aim of investigating, through a simulative approach, the events and the circumstances (both anthropic and environmental) that presumably led, between the end of the Late Bronze Age, in the 12th cent. BC, and the beginning of the Final Bronze Age, the protohistoric communities of the Southern Verona plain (known as the Northern Terramare polity) from a climatic phase of maximum development and articulation to an anti-climatic phase of sudden collapse. The study context is an interesting application for an investigation through ABM, both because of the complexity of the case scenario, in which several interrelated actors and factors must have played an important role, and because of the availability of a number of geographical and archaeological data providing both a term of comparison and an excellent information base. With the development of an artificial environment and by modeling processes potentially critical for the fate of the Terramare system, the aim is, on the one hand, to give such a complex study case a new tool for historical analysis and, on the other hand, to experiment Agent-Based Modeling and assess its potential as a methodology for archaeological investigation in the Po Plain.

This paper presents the combined use of UAV-derived Digital Elevation Models, optical and IR imaging and multispectral satellite images to produce a (micro)topographic survey of the proto-historic village of Bostel, in the municipality of Rotzo (province of Vicenza, Italy). It aims to improve our knowledge of the structural organization of the site. Different vegetation indices were calculated from the multiband images to enhance the grass and soil-marks in open field, allowing the identification of buried structures. Close-range images were acquired with a commercial DJI Phantom 2 and a customized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), equipped with both high-resolution digital and IR cameras. Structure from Motion was used on the acquired data to create digital elevation models (DEM) of sample areas, which were enhanced by using different data visualization techniques. Remote sensing analyses were then combined with fieldwork data, producing a complex environmental model. The houses found during the excavations seem to be embedded in a framework of structures for the sake of space organization, defense and control. Moreover, the presence of a dense network of terraces and buildings, running right up to the south-eastern ridge of the promontory, confirms the existence of an intense human occupation of the entire area.