DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8043378
title: ArchaeoMAPs of the hinterland of Ravenna

description: ArchaeoMAPs for the hinterland of Ravenna (Italy) representing the estimated depth of palaeosurfaces and potential archaeological sites for four chronological periods: 

Bronze Age (~1000 BCE), Roman period (~100 CE), Early Middle Ages (~1200 CE), and Late Middle Ages (~1400 CE).

These rasters were generated by subtracting the LocalDEM+ of the hinterland of Ravenna from the corresponding PalaeoDEMs of the hinterland of Ravenna using the GDAL raster calculator [1] in QGIS.

The calculation was performed with the following formula:



minimum(round((PalaeoDEM+ - LocalDEM+) * 100) / 100, -0.5)


to ensures that all values are rounded to two decimal places, with a "maximum" depth threshold of -0.5 m, representing the standard ploughing depth in the area.

This dataset includes four ArchaeoMAPs:



Ravenna_hinterland_ArchaeoMAP_Bronze.tif = raster file depicting the supposed depth of the Bronze Age palaeosurface and potentially associated archaeological sites

Ravenna_hinterland_ArchaeoMAP_Roman.tif = raster file depicting the supposed depth of the Roman period palaeosurface and potentially associated archaeological sites

Ravenna_hinterland_ArchaeoMAP_Early.tif = raster file depicting the supposed depth of the Early Middle Ages palaeosurface and potentially associated archaeological sites

Ravenna_hinterland_ArchaeoMAP_Late.tif = raster file depicting the supposed depth of the Late Middle Ages palaeosurface and potentially associated archaeological sites


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[1] More information is available at https://gdal.org/en/stable/programs/gdal_calc.html (last accessed on 31 January 2025)
description: "Geoarchaeology and palaeoDEMs modelling to assess the archaeological potential of Ravenna and its hinterland" is a multidisciplinary and diachronic PhD project whose aim was to reconstruct the physical evolution of the landscape around Ravenna (Italy) from the Bronze Age until today and how this influenced human occupation in the area. The PhD project was carried out by Michele Abballe at Ghent University/University of Verona, under the supervision of Frank Vermeulen (Ghent University), and the co-supervision of Fabio Saggioro (University of Verona), Devi Taelman (Ghent University) and Jeroen Verhegge (Ghent University). The PhD project was funded by the Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds UGent (BOF) under Grant number BOF.FJD.2017.0002.01 and supported by three Grants for long stays abroad by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) under Grant numbers V421419N, V430720N, and V409421N. This is one of the datasets produced within Michele Abballe's PhD project "Geoarchaeology and palaeoDEMs modelling to assess the archaeological potential of Ravenna and its hinterland".

Additional research for the implementation of this dataset was funded by the European Union, as part of a research fellowship which is supported by ERC grant SSE1K, GA 101044437, DOI 10.3030/101044437. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.