Ruri. Forms of living in the Po Delta in the Roman age on the basis of remote sensing data

The aim of this study is to propose a synthetic overview of research developments on suburban population and its distribution in the lowland between the Po River and the Adriatic Sea coastline, today included in the provinces of Ravenna and Ferrara, from Late Republican Age to Late Antiquity. The edited bibliography is still mostly sporadic and widely varied, especially as regards previous discoveries. It is necessary an organic work of synthesis, which allows to analyze functions, shapes and distribution of different types of housing. For this reason, through the reinterpretation of the archival records, we carried out a systematic and complete survey of the available evidence, related to the persistence of ancient rural settlements, creating a database of urban-rustic villas and rustic buildings identified. To contextualize and interpret the suburban settlement pattern, inextricably depending on the physical morphology of the ancient territory, the research also focused on the analysis of remote sensing images that can provide useful information to a better definition of the geomorphological profile of the landscape. The case study is the territory of the province of Ferrara, where the interpretation of the dense river network suggests that the distribution of the population was adapted to the morphology of the territory in continuous transformation. Hydrography, in particular, strongly influenced the settlement pattern of this territory. For this reason we particularly focused on the hydrography of the area, with particular reference to the ancient course of the Po River, not only on the basis of bibliographical sources, historical maps and aerial photos, already widely used, but also through the use of satellite images. The joint analysis of these sources, handled in a Geographical Information System, aims to a better understanding of the regional settlement pattern, in the belief that human choices deeply influenced environmental transformations. Since the width of the area of interest, we analyzed in the present preliminary research only few areas, especially by using Google EarthTM platform, thanks to increasingly widespread use for archaeological purposes. We believe that the collection of archaeological data, especially on the basis of remote sensing imagery, should be the first step to assess the suburban settlement pattern in order to direct future systematic surveys and extensive excavations.