Medium- to High-Resolution Integrated Geophysical Surveys to Reconstruct an Archaeological Settlement: New Perspectives from the Ancient Town of Nora, Southwestern Sardinia (Italy).Preliminary Results

Non-invasive and wide-area geophysical prospections are an important scientific tool for investigating ancient settlements. Through the integration with historical reconstruction studies, they allow a “highly probable” visualization of signs left under the ground by ancient civilizations. This is demonstrated once again by the application of integrated geophysical methods to the wide archaeological area of Nora: the preliminary results of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), multichannel ground penetrating radar(GPR)-in customized or standard towed configuration-, and electromagnetic (EM) applications to the site are presented and interpreted here as a tool for the reconstruction of ancient settlements urban structures, even if a detailed analysis of the correspondences between archaeological and geophysical findings is left to a more mature work. The geophysical discovery of new neighborhoods, expected from the site location and archaeological expeditious surveys, opens new frontiers in the archaeological study of the area. The non-trivial data-based geophysical results suggest the opportunity for fruitful further analyses and development indicated at the end of the present manuscript.