Articles by Barbara Pecere

The system used for organizing the data from the excavation at Hierapolis, a sample site for this research project, represents an example of the application of the methodology of GIS to a stratigraphically excavated site. The use of this methodology, based on the logical structuring of data in independent layers, makes it possible to reconstruct the micro-dynamics typical of a stratigraphic excavation. Once the archaeological layers are separated, divided and organized according to their geographic position, they are treated as a series of divisible and superimposable layers which can be used in order to create the floor plans of single monuments and, more generally, maps showing the different phases of the city. This type of data management makes it easier to understand the spatial organization and transformation of a city over time.

This paper aims to illustrate how the use of GIS tools and the application of spatial analysis techniques can help to enhance our understanding of the geographical, spatial and temporal dimensions of ancient landscapes. The theoretical and methodological point of reference of the research comes from the experience gained in a European context in the field of Settlement Archaeology, especially on a regional scale. Pre-Roman Daunia is a specific case study falling within a larger project that encompasses the whole of southern Italy, developed by the Laboratory of Archaeological Computing at the University of Lecce. Viewshed Analyses and Cost Surface Analyses were used to investigate the possible relationships between the physical and human landscape systems and to verify the presence or absence of a possible hierarchy among the sites belonging to these systems. Some interesting considerations emerged from the analysis of the Iron Age settlement system. In the earliest phases (10th-9th centuries BC), characterised by the absence of dominant towns, the settlements were organized into “small systems” made up of a number of sites, laid out in accordance with systems of physical landscape that seem to reflect precise choices; in the later phases (8th-first half of the 7th century BC), at the same time as the abandonment of the “small system” model of sites, the first signs of a hierarchy among sites emerge, and this begins to take more visible forms in the Archaic age. The work conducted on this case study has shown how the results of spatial analyses can provide the starting point for the formulation of new research hypotheses and surveying strategies in a territory where the surveys conducted up until now have tended to focus on the field of material culture, which is better documented thanks to the large collections of finds from funerary contexts, which have received more attention.