Davide Susini

This study presents a multi‐method non‐invasive investigation of an approximately 4‐ha area associated with the long‐occupied coastal settlement of Rocavecchia (Apulia, southern Italy), situated between the prehistoric fortified peninsula and the Hellenistic‐Messapian walls. Two research questions guided the analysis: First, under what circumstances does the combination of remote sensing, geomagnetic survey and fieldwalking enable reliable chronological attribution of subsurface features? Second, how does the joint interpretation of independent datasets contribute to reconstructing settlement dynamics beyond the known fortifications? To address these questions, multi‐temporal aerial and satellite imagery, vertical gradient geomagnetic prospection and systematic fieldwalking were integrated within a GIS framework. A feature‐based interpretative workflow was developed to formalise the logic connecting geomagnetic anomalies, surface artefact distributions and imagery‐derived evidence, making explicit both the correspondence criteria and the degree of residual uncertainty for each classified feature. The results show that multi‐method integration reduces interpretive ambiguity in a complex palimpsest landscape but does not resolve it univocally: Chronological attribution remains interpretative for most anomalies, and its reliability scales with the degree of convergence between independent datasets. The feature‐based workflow developed here demonstrates that formalising the interpretive logic, rather than relying on implicit visual synthesis, allows uncertainty to remain visible and spatially localised where datasets do not converge. The study further indicates that occupation extended into the extra‐mural zone across multiple phases, while defining the conditions under which such inferences can be sustained from non‐invasive proxies alone.

1. The present-day geomorphology of orogenic belts around the Earth results from a complex interplay between tectonic forces and exogenous processes that compete in topography shaping (Burbank & An...

This paper presents a 1:20,000 scale Geoarchaeological map of the Cornia river coastal plain in southern Tuscany. The Geoarchaeological map integrates a comprehensive dataset of geomorphological and archaeological features. The spatial relationships between landforms and archaeological records show that the settlement pattern from the VII century BC to the V century AD was mostly influenced by the presence of several depositional landforms which formed before the period under consideration. Integrating the outputs of geomorphological and topographical analyses with archaeological databases is also helpful for land planning, especially in areas where present-day anthropic exploitation needs predictive and valid tools to assess the archaeological hazard.