Distant eyes on the Apennines. The contribution of aerial photography and remote sensing to the understanding of the territory of northern inland Sabina between the pre-roman and roman periods

The paper deals with the inland and northern part of the ancient region of Sabina, roughly corresponding to the Alta Valnerina south of the Nera River and straddling the modern regions of Umbria, Lazio, and Marche. The territory belongs to those mountainous areas of central Italy that, at least since the late modern age, have suffered significant marginalization. This has deeply affected the state of art of the archaeology of the area, which to date can count on few extensive research, especially when compared to the great importance of some discoveries that have marked the history of these lands since the 18th century. Moreover, the territory has long been neglected, with disastrous consequences for its cultural heritage. Destruction of archaeological contexts due to agricultural, extractive and building activities, as well as outright looting by illegal excavators, has severely compromised the archaeological record of the area. Nevertheless, the case study presents significant historical interest. On one hand, it allows for the investigation of the unique settlement pattern, alternative to the urban model, of the Sabine communities that inhabited the area during the first millennium BCE. On the other hand, the integration of the territory into the Roman sphere, following its conquest by Manius Curius Dentatus (dated to 290 BCE), marks a period of major economic, political, and cultural transformations, traces of which are still partly visible in the landscape. The paper aims to present the important contribution to the reconstruction of the ancient landscape of this territory provided, in this context, by the analysis of various sources of imagery, with particular reference to aerial photography (both historical and modern), as well as satellite images and UAV photography. In addition to presenting significant new data coming from the author’s PhD research, the paper has two main aims. The first is to address the specific challenges and issues of aerial photography and remote sensing in these mountainous contexts, with particular reference to the Sabine phases (9th–3rd centuries BCE) and the Roman period. The second is to address the methodological issues of the integration of these data with other archaeological sources of different nature.