Articles by Antonio Merola

Archaeology, in its pursuit of advanced methodologies for data analysis and interpretation, has embraced with increasing enthusiasm emerging technologies from the now massive use of drones to recent developments in Artificial Intelligence. As part of the ‘Castelseprio centre of power’ project, the authors began the excavation of the structure known as Casa Piccoli in 2021 with the idea of building a digitized and open source field workflow that not only allows for the processing and archiving of stratigraphic documentation but also aims at the construction of a three-dimensional virtual environment. All the data acquired are transferred into a multi-metaverse (MAPOD4D), created in an open source environment, which offers the possibility of archiving and sharing data in a more accessible way, and of immersive displaying archaeological contexts. This creates the conditions for a complete virtual reconstruction of the excavation context, a sort of digital excavation laboratory that provides a way towards a more open and collaborative methodology, recomposing the contextual unity of the deposits.

This paper analyses a new form of environmental visibility of ancient highland sites in Abruzzo (Central Italy) during arcaic period. This investigation offers unique opportunities for understanding the management of economic and political spaces of pre-Roman populations (i.e., Peligni). Through spatial analyses, the sites of valle Peligna are classified into different types. Then, they are contextualised within the historical and archaeological landscape. The results offer new clues for identifying a nonurban state system, which is well known in ancient literature but has yet to be traced in archaeological reconstructive models.