Tracking the Samnites: Landscape and Communications Routes in the Sangro Valley, Italy

Abstract

This paper is based on field survey work carried out in the Sangro Valley, Abruzzo, Italy, between 1994 and 1998. While the preliminary results of the survey are published elsewhere (Lloyd et al. 1997), this article presents the results of a computer-based GIS methodology for reconstructing routes of communication between ancient sites in a landscape, designed to complement traditional survey methodologies and explore the so-called off-site archaeology that exists between areas of intense antique occupation within the landscape. In doing so this research not only demonstrates the theoretical value of such an approach, but also shows how its practical application has helped the project understand in greater detail the ancient landscape of the Sangro river valley. The principal results of this analysis applied to settlement patterns in the middle Sangro Valley were to show that the fortified hilltop center of Monte Pallano was closely integrated into the communications network of the surrounding settlements, that one of the largest Samnite and Roman settlements discovered by the survey lay on a junction of several well-frequented routes, and that a large area of off-site material probably derives from Iron Age cemeteries overlooking a heavily used route around the southern flank of Monte Pallano.