From scattered data to palaeolandscape reconstruction: a case study from the Romagna plain, Italy

In this paper, I will present an approach to create digital elevation models of the palaeolandscape (palaeoDEMs) for a test area within the larger Romagna plain. The many landscape transformations that occurred in the area during the last few millennia greatly limit our archaeological knowledge and historical reconstruction of the human presence, so a better understanding of how the topography changed represents a fundamental step. However, relying only on the finite archaeological data would have greatly limited the level of accuracy of the reconstructions. To try to overcome these limitations, the archaeological data have been integrated with information regarding palaeosols identified both during targeted fieldwork campaigns and in pre-existing data collected by archaeological and geological investigations. The depths of archaeological sites and geological layers have been interpolated to produce palaeoDEMs for four different chronological periods, confirming the feasibility of this approach, that could potentially be enlarged to nearby areas or applied to other regions with similar characteristics. Furthermore, through the analysis of the models created, it has been possible to elucidate the evolution of the study area, confirming several previously expressed hypotheses but also to propose a new one.