The German Landscape and Julio-Claudian Imperialism

Summary New scientific work on the ancient landscapes of Germany and Britain makes it very likely that the Roman decision to abandon attempts to conquer Germany as far as the Elbe, most clearly expressed by Tiberius in 16 AD, was strongly influenced by perceptions of the heavily wooded landscape of that region. There were other reasons too: the concern of emperors to hinder potential rivals; the sheer difficulty of advancing to the Elbe; and the increasing concern of the emperor and his advisers for the fiscal effects of this and other potential conquests. But what is new is that the evidence of arboreal and non-arboreal pollen shows that Germany was a less attractive target than agrarian England.

GIS Application in Fluvial Geomorphology and Landscape Changes

The main purpose of this Special Issue of Water is to propose on overview of studies and researches, in which the use of GIS is functional to the representation of fluvial geomorphology and river dynamics, linear erosion processes, erosion rates, ancient landscapes reshaped by the fluvial action, flooding areas, and historical anthropic changes of the river landscape and land use [...]

Lettura del sistema fortificato della fascia Tirrenica calabrese attraverso le iconografie storiche

Knowledge of fortified centres of the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria through historical documentsThis paper offers suggestions for the knowledge of fortified centres of the Tyrrhenian coast of Northern Calabria, through a critical reading of ancient graphic representations of this territory. The exegetical reading of these ancient landscapes has been supported by the notes extracted from literary sources and data deduced from analytical procedures conducted on the assets. The essential characters of the fortresses and the areas surrounding castles have been identified, recognizing the dynamics of settlements, explaining their formal, functional and constructive characters, and verifying the signs of permanence and variance through time. In the surveyed area, the castles are commonly located on hilltops, overlooking the sea and controlling the territory and villages. Because of its dense defence fabric, made of manors and towers, this area can be seen as one of the most representative of the whole Region. The study of this heritage is essential for the comprehension of the historical and architectural characters of the area, and therefore for the enhancement of the built landscape of the entire Mediterranean basin.

PCR Aleria: aspetti epigrafici

The project PCR Aléria is directed by Vincent Jolivet in collaboration with the Président de l’Exécutif de la Collectivité de Corse, the Président de l’Assemblée de Corse, the Conseillère exécutive en charge de la Culture, the D.R.A.C. and the Directeur du Département Histoire de l’Université. The work that I started in June in Corsica is part of this collective research project on the ancient city of Aleria and its territory, with the objective of studying ancient landscapes through the millennia, the systematic recognition of the hinterland and the urban centre, as well as a capillary study of the findings and of the Latin and Greek inscriptions. Only the epigraphic aspects will be presented here.

Re-Discovering Ancient Landscapes: Archaeological Survey of Mound Features from Historical Maps in Northwest India and Implications for Investigating the Large-Scale Distribution of Cultural Heritage Sites in South Asia

Incomplete datasets curtail the ability of archaeologists to investigate ancient landscapes, and there are archaeological sites whose locations remain unknown in many parts of the world. To address this problem, we need additional sources of site location data. While remote sensing data can often be used to address this challenge, it is enhanced when integrated with the spatial data found in old and sometimes forgotten sources. The Survey of India 1” to 1-mile maps from the early twentieth century are one such dataset. These maps documented the location of many cultural heritage sites throughout South Asia, including the locations of numerous mound features. An initial study georeferenced a sample of these maps covering northwest India and extracted the location of many potential archaeological sites—historical map mound features. Although numerous historical map mound features were recorded, it was unknown whether these locations corresponded to extant archaeological sites. This article presents the results of archaeological surveys that visited the locations of a sample of these historical map mound features. These surveys revealed which features are associated with extant archaeological sites, which were other kinds of landscape features, and which may represent archaeological mounds that have been destroyed since the maps were completed nearly a century ago. Their results suggest that there remain many unreported cultural heritage sites on the plains of northwest India and the mound features recorded on these maps best correlate with older archaeological sites. They also highlight other possible changes in the large-scale and long-term distribution of settlements in the region. The article concludes that northwest India has witnessed profound changes in its ancient settlement landscapes, creating in a long-term sequence of landscapes that link the past to the present and create a foundation for future research and preservation initiatives.

A proposal for the use of Core and Buffer Zones to protect the heritage of the Cyrenean landscapes

The ancient landscapes surrounding Cyrene, which have been incredibly well preserved for centuries, have suffered more destructions in the past 7 or 8 years than in the whole of the last millennium. Urban encroachment, strong demographic pressure, unsustainable exploitation of resources and unplanned growth of infrastructures and services are threatening the archaeological heritage of this splendid site. The Department of Antiquities (DoA) has always struggled against these phenomena, but today the destructions are so great that the DoA is often powerless to act. This paper continues previous works on the damage to the Cyrenean necropoleis after 2011(Abdulkariem and Bennett, 2014; Al Raeid et al. 2016; Menozzi, Di Valerio et al. 2017; Menozzi, Tamburrino et al. 2017) and proposes strategies to help, on the basis of a preliminary report organised by the Mission of the University of Chieti in collaboration with the Departments of Antiquities of Cyrene and Tripoli, as requested by UNESCO. This preliminary step towards further improvements and needs to be discussed with other institutions and missions. The first part presents a proposal for controlling the core and buffer zones around Cyrene; the second part is an update on the recent damages to the necropoleis.