20,000 Years of Landscape Evolution at Ca' Tron (Venice, Italy): Palaeoenvironment, Archaeology, Virtual Reality WEBGIS

Ca’ Tron is located in the lower part of the Venetian plain, at the inner margin of the Lagoon of Venice. Archaeological evidence in the 11 sq.km -large study area ranges from the Late Mesolithic/Ancient Neolithic Age to the Middle Ages. The most prominent archaeological feature is a stretch of the Roman via Annia, which was built in the 2nd century BC, but which in the study area may have followed an earlier, protohistoric track. The geoarchaeological research project, started in 2000, aims to understand how past human settlements and infrastructures interacted with the dynamic environmental conditions of this coastal alluvial plain. The research strategy of the multidisciplinary investigation is presented. Methods of data acquisition range from archaeological survey and excavation to pollen analysis, remote sensing, geomorphological mapping, sedimentology and palaeopedology. The reconstruction of landscapes in periods of interest (e.g. Last Glacial Maximum, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman Age, Middle Ages) is discussed, as part of an ongoing attempt to use palaeoenvironmental data to build robust and immersive web-based 3D virtualreality landscape reconstructions.