An interdisciplinary study of the archaeological landscape of the Trieste area (northeastern Italy), mainly based on airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR), ground penetrating radar (GPR), and archaeological surveys, has led to the discovery of an early Roman fortification system, composed of a big central camp (San Rocco) flanked by two minor forts. The most ancient archaeological findings, including a Greco–Italic amphora rim produced in Latium or Campania, provide a relative chronology for the first installation of the structures between the end of the third century B.C. and the first decades of the second century B.C. whereas other materials, such as Lamboglia 2 amphorae and a military footwear hobnail (type D of Alesia), indicate that they maintained a strategic role at least up to the mid first century B.C. According to archaeological data and literary sources, the sites were probably established in connection with the Roman conquest of the Istria peninsula in 178–177 B.C. They were in use, perhaps not continuously, at least until the foundation of Tergeste, the ancestor of Trieste, in the mid first century B.C. The San Rocco site, with its exceptional size and imposing fortifications, is the main known Roman evidence of the Trieste area during this phase and could correspond to the location of the first settlement of Tergeste preceding the colony foundation. This hypothesis would also be supported by literary sources that describe it as a phrourion (Strabo, V, 1, 9, C 215), a term used by ancient writers to designate the fortifications of the Roman army

Sinkholes are a well-known geologic hazard but their past occurrence, useful for subsidence risk prediction, is difficult to define, especially for ancient historic times. Consequently, our knowledge about Holocene carbonate landscapes is often limited. A multidisciplinary study of Trieste Karst (Italy), close to early Roman military fortifications, led to the identification of possible ancient road tracks, cut by at least one sinkhole. Electrical Resistivity Tomography through the sinkhole has suggested the presence of a cave below its bottom, possibly responsible of the sinkhole formation, while Ground Penetrating Radar has detected no tectonic disturbances underneath the tracks. Additionally, archaeological surveys led to the discovery of over 200 Roman shoe hobnails within or close to the investigated route. According to these data, the tracks are interpreted as the remains of a main Roman road, whose itinerary has been reconstructed for more than 4 km together with other elements of ancient landscape. Our results provide the first known evidence of a Roman main road swallowed by sinkholes and suggest that Holocene karst landscapes could be much different from what previously believed. In fact, sinkholes visible nowadays in the investigated region could have been flat areas filled by sediments up to the Roman time.

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The paper presents a group of four, approximately 0.5m large, stone disks from entrances or cemeteries of two protohistoric hillforts of north-eastern Adriatic. The disks, having a sparse chronology with the exception of one dated to the Middle Bronze Age, show flat and plain surfaces or covered with sub-circular depressions. One disk shows two larger cup-marks at the centre of both faces. They are interpreted as ritual artefacts based on the association with sacred settlement locations and comparisons with similar coeval stones found mainly close to citadel entrances, burials and thresholds in the Aegean area and Anatolia.