Indagini multiscalari per la ricostruzione paleoambientale e insediativa del sito preromano di San Basilio di Ariano nel Polesine (RO)

The paper exposes the results of the preliminary investigations set up by the University of Padua in San Basilio of Ariano nel Polesine (RO). This area revealed a palimpsest of traces left by a long-term human occupation, from a pre-roman (VI-V century BC) multi-ethnic port of trade where Etruscans, Greeks and Venetians coexisted, to a Roman age villa/mansio, and finally in Early Middle Ages.The environmental system that characterizes the settlement, located by the ancient coastline near the branch of the Po di Ariano (today Po di Goro), determined, together with the action of man, an overlap of landscape traces. This study focuses on the different scales adopted by the team of University of Padua in the field investigation. First of all, data from remote sensing were analyzed in order to recognize traces left by different natural and human agents in the past. The second step involved the surface, through survey and geophysics, while the third scale investigated the stratigraphy with cores. With the integration of three different lenses of observation, the team managed to get geomorphological and environmental data which were fundamental for setting excavation tests in 2019 and 2021.