Integration between magnetic surveys and archaeological excavations: the case study Pava (Siena, Central Italy)

The archaeological site of Pava is located in the southern province of Siena, (municipality of San Giovanni d’Asso). The location of the area, obtained through the historical and archaeological studies of landscape, is part of the project “Archaeological Map of Siena Province”, started in the 1990 with a collaboration between the Department of Archaeology of University of Siena and the Province of Siena. The researches made with the aim to asses the historical and archaeological properties of the territory of San Giovanni d’Asso, have interested a period between 2000 and 2004, with the results to locate about 260 historicalarchaeological sites. Pava is one of the most important site among these. In this area the scatter pottery allowed us to consider the site as a remarkable complex probably linked to the ancient road. The chronology of the site covered a time from the late (roman) republican-first imperial (I century b.C.-I century a.C.) till the late roman phase (till VI century a.C.) The main interesting implication for this site is contained in a document of Lombard time (714-715) where there is the mention of a S. Pietro in Pava parish church (today inexistent). The site has been studied analysing a set of vertical aerial photographs and making aerial surveys from 2002 to 2004, with the aim to locate buried structures. Together with these information, a large scale geophysical surveys, employing a differential magnetic method, have been carried out.