Abstract
This work introduces the results of a geoarchaeological study about a large segment of a Roman road (i.e., Via Herculia, III and the beginning of IV century A.D.), which crossed the Lucanian segment of the southern Apennines (Italy). Classical approach of the archaeological research based on the analysis of bibliographic, archival, literary, archaeological, and historical sources allowed us to infer the Roman road path, which is quite different from previous hypotheses. Geoarchaeological analysis is based on the detailed mapping of lithological and geomorphological features of the study area and has been primarily focused on a well-known segment of the Roman road from Filiano to the southern mountains of the Potenza city (Sasso di Castalda). Our results suggest that the choice of the road path has been driven by the outcrop of some deposits and the presence of specific geomorphological landforms, such as low-relief areas in mountain landscape. Then, the same approach was applied to a sector with controversial archaeological evidences (i.e., the Upper Agri river valley), where geological and geomorphological analyses support archaeological research in the reconstruction of the ancient path. This integrated approach can help archaeology to understand and then discover ancient road paths crossing complex and impervious landscapes such as the intramontane lands.
Highlights
Due to its important role on economic exchange, information transfer, army movement, control of the territory, and growing of settlement networks, the reconstruction of ancient viability is an important issue for the investigation of past political, social, economic, and military factors of theRoman civilization [1]
Our results suggest that the choice of the road path has been driven by the outcrop of some deposits and the presence of specific geomorphological landforms, such as low-relief areas in mountain landscape
The main geological and geomorphological features of an area surrounding the inferred road path have been extracted in order to investigate how several factors, such as physiographic setting, specific landforms, and/or lithology outcrops can have influenced the planning of Via Herculia
Summary
Due to its important role on economic exchange, information transfer, army movement, control of the territory, and growing of settlement networks, the reconstruction of ancient viability is an important issue for the investigation of past political, social, economic, and military factors of the. The aim of this work is to investigate the possible influence of geological and geomorphological features on the selection of the path of an intermountain roman road. Its path has been reconstructed on the basis of a detailed historical and archaeological analysis (i.e., bibliographic, archival, literary, archaeological, and historical sources integrated by extensive field survey and photo-interpretation [6,7]). It changes the traditional idea of an ancient road without certain archaeological control points. Geological and geomorphological analysis of the archaeologically reconstructed road path and surrounding have been performed in order to infer the possible influence of "positive" and "negative". Agri river valley, where archaeologists hypothesize four alternative road paths with both similar archaeological constraints and the same distance in roman miles from the last stop-over of Acidios (near Marsico Nuovo town) to the terminus of Grumentum (i.e., the roman colony near Grumento Nova town)
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