Articles by Valeria Acconcia

The National Geoportal for Archeology (GNA), started in 2017 by the Central Institute for Archeology (Istituto Centrale per l’Archeologia – ICA) of the Italian Ministry of Culture, has the primary goal of making data resulting from all archaeological investigations carried out on the national territory freely accessible online. The project is part of the activities carried out by the Institute regarding the register and digitalization of archaeological research data. Its primary function is the creation of a dynamic archaeological map, easily implementable over time, free to access and easy to consult, open to reuse and integration by all users. The data-entry according to the GNA standard is entrusted to the use of a pre-set GIS project (template) developed using the open source software QGIS. GNA also receives data from other projects designed or managed by the Superintendencies in some areas of Italy, with the aim of preserving good practices already tested locally.

This paper presents a territorial analysis focused on a sample area in the inner region of Abruzzo, delimited by the Gran Sasso and the Sirente mountain ranges and characterised by strong geomorphological irregularities. Archaeological data from the Final Bronze Age/ Early Iron Age to the beginning of the Romanization process are analysed through a computer-based approach, using CAD, DBMS and GIS. Published data about this region are quite disjointed, both for methodological reasons and for various interferences in the archaeological record. These aspects influenced the landscape analyses proposed in previous studies and the hypothesis about the territorial exploitation patterns during the pre-Roman times. Research has been mainly concentrated on sites with better visibility, such as fortified hilltop sites and necropolises, frequently compared to the Roman settlement pattern, based on valley floor sites along the main pathways. Nevertheless, recent surveys suggest that these data should be reconsidered, taking into account both the presence of other kinds of sites (such as the Iron Age/Archaic period small rural sites localised in the valley floor) and continuity in the settlement pattern up to Roman times. The available archaeological data have been processed within a GIS, in order to investigate placement and visibility/intervisibility factors in hilltop fortified sites, starting from an expressly projected DEM. The territorial sample has been filtered using qualitative and quantitative parameters, proving that hilltop sites during the pre-Roman times were likely to control the natural catchment area. In Roman times, this pattern lost its mainly defensive character, with hilltop sites being abandoned, and was incorporated in the so-called ‘paganus-vicanicus’ system, connected to the administrative subdivision gravitating on urban centres (coloniae and then municipia) and on new monumental cult places.