Reading a difficult landscape from the air. A methodological case-study from a WWII airfield in South Italy

The landscape of Basilicata in Southern Italy poses arduous problems for reading the region's archaeological remains using remote sensing techniques.1 While the nearby plain of Foggia is famous for its wealth of archaeological sites detected from the air (Bradford, 1949; Ceraudo, 2009; Goffredo, 2006), hardly any archaeological traces have been identified in the adjacent Melfese area (North Basilicata). As both regions are characterized by large-scale cereal crop cultivation, this difference cannot be easily explained from agricultural practices alone. Solutions for this conundrum have been proposed by emphasizing the geological and pedological differences between the two regions. While acknowledging that these geo-pedological circumstances strongly influence the visibility of traces of the past in the Melfese landscape, this paper argues that this is only part of the explanation. By analysing short-term changes in the readability of the traces of the WWII airfield of Venosa (Potenza, Italy), this research highlights the importance of seasonal and climatologic circumstances in remote sensing, as well as human interventions in the landscape. These results complement previous knowledge and signal promising lines of enquiry for disclosing the well-hidden archaeological landscape of the Melfese area and Central-Southern Italy in general.