The Temple of Athena is one of the main sacred areas of the Greek-Roman settlement of Poseidonia-Paestum (southern Italy). Several archaeological excavations were carried out here between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Unfortunately, the locations of these excavations are only approximately known, as are the geomorphology and stratigraphy of the temple area. A multidisciplinary study, including stratigraphic, geomorphological, archaeological, and sedimentological investigations, remote sensing, and electromagnetic and geoelectrical tests, was therefore carried out, shedding new light on the geomorphology and stratigraphy of the SW and W temple sectors. The geophysical data obtained revealed anomalies in the subsoil that probably correspond to ancient structures and the cutting of the travertine deposits around the temple. The position and extension of the trenches of the early archaeological excavations were also established.

Historic landscape and cultural heritage are often integrated into a system of protection and valorisation through the global approach of archaeology and landscape archaeology. This system is conceived as a territorial study collecting all the evidence of human presence and its history, allowing the assessment of the historical and archaeological component through evolutionary dynamics. Therefore the study of landscape archaeology is central to the design and programming of territorial works. The "landscape system", the result of the coexistence of environmental and human dynamics, has meant that territorial transformation processes have become the object of scientific interest assuming considerable political importance. In this paper, we present the preliminary results of a geophysical prospections for a map of the archaeological potential of the territory of Flumeri in Avellino, Italy. This diagnostic contribution was designed to give a distinctive and better representation of the territory. The scientific approach chosen for this project is the result of a multidisciplinary convergence: bibliographical and archival research, analysis of topographic and photogrammetric surveys, systematic investigations of the territory and geophysical survey. These diverse non-invasive geophysical methods allowed us to define and detail the archaeological potential of the studied area in a better way; by defining micro-areas of geophysical survey starting with defining macro-areas of high archaeological potential. This approach has a double value: the geophysical surveys serve as a support for the archaeological knowledge of the area and the archaeological knowledge helps towards the identification of areas for geophysical survey.

This paper deals with the application of geophysical prospections to the study of the Church of Saint Cosma in Helerito inside the Monastery of Saints Cosma and Damiano (Tagliacozzo, L’Aquila, Italy). The research aimed to verify the presence of buried ancient archaeological structures of a construction phase older than the current building. Thus, a grid of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) profiles was carried out inside the building in the available spaces using a radar unit equipped with a multi-frequency antenna of 200–600 MHz. The analysis of 2D radargrams and horizontal slices relative to different temporal ranges led to the identification of significant regular patterns of the amplitude of the electromagnetic signals. The results suggest the presence of a buried structure below the analyzed surface.

Palma Campania, the type-site of the Early Bronze Age Palma Campania culture, was covered by the products of the Avellino Pumice eruption, and was thus preserved in a similar way to the Roman sites in Campania covered by the AD 79 eruption. The devastating effects of this Plinian eruption led to the belief that it had killed a large part of the local population and/or caused large-scale emigration and landscape desertification. However, new sites have been found that were established shortly after the eruption and geoarchaeological studies of areas close to the Somma-Vesuvius volcano (Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Torre Annunziata/Oplontis, Pompeii) and also further away (the Benevento area, Irpinia and the Salerno area) have shown continuity of occupation after the Avellino Pumice eruption and during the later, Middle Bronze Age, AP1 and AP2 eruptions. Palynological analysis also shows great similarity between the environments before and after the Avellino Pumice eruption. The pottery evidence is typologically very similar before and after the eruption, which suggests that the people who resettled the Campanian plain after the eruption were closely related to those living there previously, whose material culture is that of the Palma Campania culture. Radiocarbon dates also suggest a rapid recolonisation of some sites. In this paper we shall show that although the pyroclastic products of the Avellino Pumice eruption certainly had a major impact on the landscape (soils, flora, water resources) and may have killed off a percentage of the population in some areas, this eruption was not the main cause of the socioeconomic and political transformations that occurred in this area during the Middle Bronze Age, which we believe to have been mainly caused by the cumulative effect of the later AP1 and AP2 eruptions.