New evidence of a Roman road in the Venice Lagoon (Italy) based on high resolution seafloor reconstruction

Fantina Madricardo,Antonio Calandriello,Maddalena Bassani,Giuseppe D’Acunto,Federica Foglini

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-92939-w

Fantina Madricardo, Antonio Calandriello + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92939-w

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Abstract

This study provides new evidence of the presence of an ancient Roman road in correspondence to a paleobeach ridge now submerged in the Venice Lagoon (Italy). New high resolution underwater seafloor data shed new light on the significance of the Roman remains in the lagoon. The interpretation of the data through archive and geo-archaeological research allowed a three-dimensional architectural reconstruction of the Roman road. The presence of the ancient Roman road confirms the hypothesis of a stable system of Roman settlements in the Venice Lagoon. The study highlights the significance of this road in the broader context of the Roman transport system, demonstrating once more the Roman ability to adapt and to handle complex dynamic environments that were often radically different from today.

Highlights

The Romans built a very efficient road system extending for tens of thousands of kilometres to connect all their territories[1,2,3,4]
What was the role played by the Venice Lagoon, the largest lagoon in the Mediterranean Sea, surrounding the historical city of Venice (Italy) (Fig. 1)? We know that in Roman Times, the relative mean sea level was lower than today and large parts of the lagoon, which are submerged, were accessible by land[9,10,11,12,13]
The fate of the Venice Lagoon, its origin and geological evolution have always been tightly linked to the relative mean sea level rise, that is threatening the existence itself of the historical city and the lagoon island[14,15]

Summary

Introduction

The Romans built a very efficient road system extending for tens of thousands of kilometres to connect all their territories[1,2,3,4]. The transport system, was not limited to the routes on land, since the imperial control of the territory extended to transitional environments such as deltas, marshes, and lagoons[6,7,8] and a capillary network of waterways was used for the exchanges of goods and the movement of people In this context, what was the role played by the Venice Lagoon, the largest lagoon in the Mediterranean Sea, surrounding the historical city of Venice (Italy) (Fig. 1)? Other studies excluded the possibility of the existence of permanent structures and infrastructures before the V–VI century A D31–33: Venice was thought to be built in a ‘desert’ place without any previous traces of human presence and the Roman findings on and within the seafloor belonged to buildings in the mainland surrounding the lagoon Within this long-running debate, this multidisciplinary study supports the perspective of extensive Roman settlements in the Venice Lagoon, by presenting new high resolution multibeam echo-sounder data interpreted through the archive and geo-archaeological research and digital modelling. Different from today and (iii) stress the need to rediscover, document and preserve the archaeological remains in submerged or buried coastal landscape that may be threatened by human induced changes or relative mean sea level rise

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