Articles by Enrico Croce

The work presented in this paper investigates the settlement dynamics of the Lower Verbano area between the Iron Age and the Middle Ages. The known archaeological sites, obtained from the public GNA database, were used along with a series of physical characteristics of the territory as variables for the calculation of an inductive predictive model. The results demonstrate the analytical potential of this methodology in the field of archaeological landscape analysis, highlighting also its shortcomings in strictly predictive terms. The model created for the general record of archaeological sites in the GNA proves to be underperforming from a predictive standpoint, whereas heterogeneous results were obtained when the sample of sites was selected chronologically. The model calculated for the Iron Age shows a high discriminatory power and, when compared to the models for the subsequent periods, under scores the importance of the selection of variables for this methodological approach. The use of data from a public database revealed several deficiencies in the management of complex territorial information inherent in its structure, but also highlighted the intrinsic potential of such a tool, which we hope to fully develop in the future.