Acquisizione ed elaborazione dei dati LiDAR a Castelporziano

Giuseppe P. Cirigliano, Gabriele Mazzacca, Fabio Remondino, Stefano Campana

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 2026, Supplemento 15, 37-53; doi: 10.19282/acs.15.2026.04

Abstract

This paper reports preliminary outcomes of the 'Hidden Landscapes of Latium project', applied to the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano, an exceptionally well‑preserved coastal landscape in the central Mediterranean and, concurrently, a highly challenging forested context for landscape archaeology. The study area, about 60 km², characterized by dense and continuous vegetation cover, was surveyed by airborne LiDAR acquisition at very high point density (in average 350 pts/m²), with the goal to facilitate under‑canopy archaeological detection in a highly challenging Mediterranean environments. We provide a critical appraisal of the acquisition strategy, with particular attention to sampling density and flight design as determinative factors for the detection of subtle anthropogenic micro‑topographies. The acquired dataset was subjected to a semantic‑segmentation processing pipeline that integrates multi‑level and multi‑resolution machine‑learning techniques for the automated classification of ground, vegetation, and structural elements. Results indicate that the combination of archaeologist-addressed, high‑resolution LiDAR acquisition and advanced semantic classification substantially enhance the interpretability of forested archaeological landscapes and enables the identification of features previously obscured by vegetation. Castelporziano thus constitutes a valuable testbed for evaluating the applicability, transferability, and limitations of LiDAR‑based methodologies within Mediterranean landscape archaeology.

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