The project aims to systematize the large amount of data collected during 26 years of research by different archaeologists and specialists who have worked in synergy on the site and in the laboratories, increasing digital resources and making the results of the work public for not only a specialist audience. We intend to continue the excavation investigations to understand the social life of the city, starting with sector II, which is returning intact or completely rebuildable artefacts, as well as many archaeozoological and paleobotanical remains; for the same reason, investigations will continue in the necropolis, assisted by anthropologists. The area of the military garrison and the central area of the city will then be further investigated. We will continue with the restoration of the structures and of the mobile finds, also with both scheduled operations and emergency interventions directly on the construction site.
We intend to expand the variety of the specialisms called to collaborate with archeology, starting to create a 3D digital model of the excavation, namely stratigraphic deposits, structures and artifacts, with the acquisition of new data directly on site, the reworking and integration of data from previous excavation campaigns, realignment of documentation according to new and more updated standards. The new SIGEDAC, the information system (started in the 2019 program) which allows the integrated management of archaeological data with anthropological, archaeozoological, geological data, restorations, different analyses etc., will be implemented. A WebGis will be created to integrate and display all the information, allowing it to be shared in a web environment on various channels, starting with the excavation website, which will be restructured. The museum project of some finds will also be completed at the University's History of Medicine Museum.
The whole project is presented as innovative because the digitization of an archaeological excavation is not an obvious process, with completely experimental aspects that are united in a single site and that we try to make public as far as possible. In particular:
- The application in the archaeological field of the digital techniques of Reverse Engineering (RE), started in close collaboration with the engineering component. The purpose, in addition to the processing of data in the field, will be useful for the creation of best practices and case studies to be adopted in training researchers to use RE techniques not only as an acquisition tool but also to return the entire computer work loops on the finds, allowing you to document the artifacts found on the excavation in real time, limit their movement, speed up their study. Above all, we intend to experiment a study model for contexts with quantitative grades of materials (in the case of Cencelle, for example, the ceramic artefacts exceed 100.000 fragments).
- The available anthropological data on a large skeletal sample (N=900) constitutes a starting point for a more in-deep investigation on the dynamics and the lifestyle of the Medieval population of Leopoli-Cencelle. This skeletal series represents an outstanding model to gaining knowledge on the long-term evolution of the Medieval period in Italy through a multidisciplinary approach combining skeletal biology, stable isotope analysis from bone proteins, ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis and metagenomic analysis from dental calculus focusing on the mortality patterns, the epidemiological regime, the prevalence of diseases as well as dietary and medicinal habits. The palaeopathological data will be necessary to evaluate the prevalence of diseases and disorders as well as gender differences. First of all the morphological examination will be extended to those individuals that have not been analysed yet in order to assess the presence of potential pathological alterations, moreover ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis could be performed on pathological individual in order to achieve a differential diagnosis. In addition to all that, non-specific stress markers could provide useful data concerning general wealth, nutritional status social structure, and population dynamic. In this scenario dietary pattern reconstruction represents an important issue as food consumption has a significant influence on human behaviour and has been interlinked with major changes in human history and ecological conditions. Past dietary habits could be reconstructed by carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis from bone proteins that provide a direct measure of an individual diet as well as by the metagenomics analysis of dental calculus that allows exploring broad
aspects of past human diet and health. This cutting-edge technology, in fact will provide a new instrument to investigate and understand the microscopic world associated with the human body, providing insight into the evolution, movement and demise of ancient societies, enhancing the comprehension of the impact of bacterial evolution as well as how cultural, social, and environmental changes influenced human health and behaviour.
- The excavation at Cencelle archaeological site represents a sort of training field for the High Institute of Conservation and Renovation of MIBAC (Ministry of Heritage and Cultural Activities), due to an agreement made with the Antiquity Department. The restoration works by ISCR personnel and emergency interventions will not be only performed on artifacts and structures, but they will be also tested on non-toxic biocides, long-lasting mortars, non-transportable materials subject to temperature leaps. Teams of restorers will be on the site during excavations and moreover they will monitor the site regularly over the year. The existence of an experimental excavation active all year round, at the expense of MIBAC, gives the project an extraordinary potential for the field of restoration, even because during the winter term, transportable materials from the excavations get restored in the ISCR courses.
- The implementation of a specific IT system where to gather all data, including those concerning restoration, with an archiving system in Cloud, makes the Cencelle project, a model of good practice in the conservation and long-term data management, other than a constant methodologic update. The implementation of the system, the creation of the WebGis, the improvement of the website will allow the migration of data towards a wider use of information towards a more diversified public, also in the territory of Cencelle.