Roads or Embankments? The double function of the Terramare connective/ hydraulic system in the Valli Grandi Veronesi

During the Bronze Age, the southern territory of the ValliGrandi Veronesi was the scene of a critical territorial reorganization in conjunction with the emergence of the Terramare civilization, which was involved in a circuit of short, medium (with the Po Plain, the Alps and the peninsular area) and wide range (with the Aegean and Levantine world) exchanges,related both to the circulation of goods and to the supply of productive resources. In this complex network of political and commercial relations the main nodes were represented by settlements and production centers, organized according to a hierarchical order and interconnected by inland waterways and roads. Since 1982 AMPBV Project (Alto Medio Polesine – Basso Veronese) directed by the University of Padova and the university College of London, has carried on non-invasive investigations on this "fossil landscape", focusing not only on the main sites but also on the off-site/inter-site space. The most striking evidence of a connectionsetup identified in the study area, which connects the two biggest Terramarecenters Castello del Tartaro and FondoPaviani, is the so-called SAM (StradasuArgineMeridionale, “road on southern bank”), the name due to its alleged double function of connection and water containment, as protection of the site hinterland from the advancing waterlogging from the depressed southern area. The ultimate goals are to understand the internal and external relationships of local landscape of power(at the intra to inter-polity spatial resolution), as well as the relationship between the human community and the natural environment. A landscape analysis has been carried out both by remote sensing, considering the archaeological traces on different data sources (diachronic aerophotographic series, Lidar-derived DTM, Radar, multispectral satellite images) and with non-invasive or micro-invasive field interventions, whose collected crossed-referenced data allowed us to clarify some issues related to the spatial layout, the chronology and the functionality of the connective infrastructure within the northern Terramare system.