Last modified: 2011-12-17
Abstract
The study of centuriated field systems have been renewed during the last years by the incorporation of new geospatial tools such as remote sensing or GIS (Orengo and Palet 2010, Palet and Orengo 2011). The territory of the Greek and Roman colony of Empuries have been the object of a multidisciplinary landscape research which includes GIS and remote sensing but also, survey, excavation and multiproxy palaeoenvironmental analyses. This ongoing project will be employed to illustrate how the complementary use of these techniques can help reconstructing ancient field systems and landscape configurations. Firstly, different remote sensing techniques such as LIDAR, multispectral imaging, RADAR or photogrammetrical approaches will be compared and their different strengths and drawbacks presented. Secondly, the integration of complementary techniques such as palaeoenvironmental analyses, cartography or the analysis of written documentation will be investigated. Finally, the ways in which the resulting field systems can be tested and verified will be presented. With this paper the authors aim at presenting a much needed integrated methodology for the study of ancient field systems. The standardisation of methods and procedures might result in an eventual revival of a discipline which has been frequently criticised in the past for its faulty results.