Archeologia di un paesaggio fluviale: approcci integrati e metodologie per la conoscenza e la tutela del corso del Mincio

This PhD project originates from my desire to test a methodology for the landscape and the territorial survey of an area of the Verona province. This area is located in a very particular landscape: the upper course of the Mincio river. Archaeology, therefore, of a "river landscape", but also and especially archeology of a composite landscape, formed by different environmental contexts, all orbiting around the northern course of the Mincio river. This river has profoundly influenced the human settlement and organization of its surrounding territory. In this research it has been, therefore, necessary to investigate very different environmental realities and different landscapes: from the river to the lake, from the moraine hills to the high plains of Verona and Mantua. This environmental complexity required a diversified and often "dynamic" approach - hardly programmable - that sometimes led to unexpected results, given the incomplete and limited starting data. The tools and the sources used during the search are extremely varied. So, not only an archaeological setting, but also an integrated approach that often used the instruments of other historical, topographic, environmental and epigraphic disciplines, in order to look at the landscape in its various forms, with the aim of reconstructing the evolution in its relationship with the human presence. A certain percentage of experimentation, the analysis of some sources not usually considered, but especially the use of a Geographical Information System often supplied the deficiency of the archaeological evidence and helped to take from a “difficult” territory data however new and interesting. The collaborations brought into play in this project have been stimulant also from the point of view of the research and useful for the results I obtained. The partnership with the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Veneto, Nucleo Operativo di Verona, allowed me to cooperate in the monitoring of the study area, to access to the archaeological data and to collaborate with the Comune of Valeggio in the editing of the PAT and in some checks and surveys on the territory. It has been possible to include in the work some contributions derived from operations of “field archeology" also, which are usually related to the work domain rather than the academic research.