Settlement Strategies and Environmental Features in the Sardinian Bronze Age: a Remote Sensing Approach.

Summary

In this paper, we provide a remote sensing approach for the analysis of the settlement patterns of the Nuragic civilization, using data from Landsat 7 ETM+ in a sample area of Sardinia (Gallura). By evaluating archaeological and geological data through remote sensing imagery, we outline a territorial characterization to identify patterns in the settlement choices of the Bronze Age communities, through the use of Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Statistical Analysis.

The applied method allows to point out new aspects in the settlement strategies and shows how and to what extent an integrate approach can shed new light on different facets of the Nuragic civilization, a long-lasting culture that existed in Sardinia (Italy), from the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1600 B.C) to the first Iron age (ca. 800 B.C.).

With the use of the Earth Oservation (EO) methodologies and the GIS platform, we reconstruct with a high level of precision the geomorphology of the examined area and analyze the spatial statistical relationship between Nuragic settlements and environmental features: in this way we identify for the Nuragic civilization in Gallura a different settlement strategy, in spite of the otherwise very similar traits of this civilization throughout the entire Sardinia.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage