Geophysical prospection in the territory of the Roman town of Aesernia, Central-Southern Italy

The geophysical prospection survey at Isernia constitutes a ground-based remote-sensing research module of the Aesernia field survey project (Stek et al. in press). This is a subproject of the “Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project”, funded by NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) and based at Leiden University and the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, which is implemented in Molise in collaboration with the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Molise (Stek and Pelgrom 2013). The project investigates the rural settlement organization of the Roman towns of Venusia and Aesernia through conventional surface survey techniques and remote-sensing approaches (aerial imagery and geophysical prospection). Five different sites in the area of Isernia were prospected using an integrated strategy, namely magnetometry, soil resistance and ground penetrating (GPR) techniques. More than 16,820 m2 were prospected with a large degree of overlap between different methods.