Articles by Federico Zoni

The Alpine settlement of Teglio, Italy, offers a commanding view of the Adda River and nearby passes, pivotal in early medieval times. The ‘Dos del Castel’ hillock, with its medieval structures including the S. Stefano church and ‘Torre de li beli miri’ tower, had remained unexplored archaeologically until recent non-invasive surveys using Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) and UAV multispectral analysis. These methods were applied to detect buried structures and analyze vegetation indices, revealing the presence of walls and possible functional spaces carved into the bedrock. The GPR surveys identified high-reflectivity anomalies indicating masonry structures, while multispectral analysis, despite sparse vegetation, highlighted significant areas of possible archaeological interest. Subsequent excavations confirmed these findings, uncovering walls, a monumental staircase, and other structures, suggesting a long-standing and well-organized occupation of the site. This integrated approach has proven effective, paving the way for new approaches in archaeological prospection.

This paper describes a procedure of archaeological interpretation and representation based on DEM technology. Through different contexts of application the aim is to describe the potential of this procedure, useful for recreating all the stratigraphic complexity of an archaeological site. After an introduction and a short history of studies about the use of DEM in archaeological documentation, the Author illustrates two examples of archaeological excavation and two of archaeology of architecture. The first case study is the Castle of Castelpizigolo (Toano, RE): the DEM documentation was used for the production of automatic profile lines of every archaeological stratification. A similar result was obtained in the documentation of the second archaeological context, the site of Capo Don (Riva Ligure, IM). The subject of this investigation was a fireplace dating from Late Antiquity to the early medieval period. The second part was focused on the use of DEM in the archaeological analysis of buildings. A preliminary investigation was focused on an example of household architecture from the island of Rab (Croatia). The DEM was used for the interpretation of the origins of some architectural instabilities, caused by stratigraphic changes which occurred in the original building. The last case study was the rural church of S. Giusto in Marlia (LU), where DEM analysis gave a new interpretation about the archaeological evolution of this building. The procedure described in this paper is an innovative method for producing a faster and more accurate archaeological documentation and for giving a new archaeological tool for the stratigraphic interpretation of historical buildings.