POTENZA Valley Project

POTENZA Valley Project

In 2000 a team of Ghent University (Belgium), under the direction of Prof. Frank Vermeulen, started a very intensive survey of an Adriatic valley. Denominated 'Potenza Valley Survey' (PVS), this research project aims at measuring the evolution of social complexity during Antiquity in a specific part of Central Italy. The fieldwork operations in the valley of the river Potenza included systematic archaeological field walking, active aerial photography, artefact studies, re-study of excavated evidence, detailed geomorphologic field mapping, geophysical surveys and topographic analysis. During the years these interdisciplinary and mostly non-invasive approaches allowed to obtain a new holistic synthesis of the occupation history in this territory, with a special emphasis on the protohistoric, Roman and early medieval periods.  

This website wants to take the PVS online, by offering up-to-date information on the aims of the project, the methodologies applied and the results gained. As frequently as possible, this site will be updated with more texts, maps and pictures. So please check regularly.

• About
• Results
• Maps
• Pictures
• Video
• Researchers
• References
• Contact
• News

Video

• The Potenza Valley Survey. A breef look at aerial photography.
• Aerial photography with the helikite.
• The Potenza Valley Survey 2007. Mechanically digging out the excavation area.
• Manually digging out the excavation area.
• Discovering the remains of the city wall.
• Cleaning the Roman road.
• Taking heights, drawing and collecting animal bones.
• Prospection with the georadar.
• The restoration of a tombstone.

 Articles

• Preliminary report of field campaign 2000
• Preliminary report of field campaign 2001
• Preliminary report of field campaign 2002
• Preliminary report of field campaign 2003
• Preliminary report of field campaign 2007
• The development of 'vernice nera'-pottery in the Marches
• The contribution of aerial photography and field survey to the study of urbanization in the Potenza Valley (Picenum)
• Geo-archaeological implications of river and coastal dynamics at the Potenza river mouth ( The Marches, Italy)
• Tracing Late Roman Rural Occupation in Adriatic Central Italy
• La Centuriazione Romana di Potentia nel Piceno. Nuovi approcci per una revisione critica e per una comprensione diacronica
• Measuring urbanisation in the Late Republican and Early Imperial landscape of Adriatic Central Italy (Bolletino On-Line di Archeologia)
• Scavi presso la porta occidentale di Potentia: notizie preliminare
• Reviewing 10 years of aerial Photography in the Valley of the River Potenza (Marche)
• Potentia: A Lost New Town
• Investigating the impact of Roman urbanisation on the landscape of the Potenza Valley: A Report on Fiekdwork in 2007
• Republican colonization and early urbanization in Central Adriatic Italy: the valley of the River Flosis