Defining Southern Etruria Final Bronze Age settlement models using an integrated GIS and Machine Learning approach

This research aims to use quantitative and repeatable GIS techniques, as well as Machine Learning algorithms, to study the settlement patterns in Southern Etruria during the final phase of the Bronze Age (1150-950/925 BC). The region of Southern Etruria is located in present-day Latium, Tuscany, and Umbria. The study, which includes 166 settlements, focuses on identifying the morphological characteristics of these settlements by means of raster analysis. Using a Machine Learning approach, the research will compare real settlements with random points within the region to understand the specific characteristics of the settlement pattern in the landscape. The study will also examine the use of feature selection and features importance methods to select the most significant features of a multivariate dataset.