High-resolution geophysical investigation of the archaeological site “Le Pozze” in the surroundings of the town of Lonato (Brescia, Northern Italy)

During the summer 2004 a high-resolution GPR survey was conducted in an archaeological area located within a short distance from the town of Lonato in northern Italy by a new GSSI Terravision system. The aims of the survey were to sketch the geometry and the nature of the buried structures and to experiment a new approach in surveying large surfaces. An area of approximately 70.000 sqm was surveyed in less than 16 working hours with a inline trace spacing of 0.025 m and an average crossline spacing of 0.2 m for a total of about 490 km of GPR profiling. Spatial positioning was controlled with a separate on-board differential GPS system. The large amount of collected data was processed on a workstation-based environment under the Sun Solaris architecture with the seismic-unix package. Specific codes have been developed to integrate navigation and radar data. A number of well-defined reflectors are clearly visible in the final data volume. The framework of the buried structures was revealed by the geophysical images proving the potentials of the new radar system to assist large scale archaeological exploration.