Multitemporal 2016-2018 Sentinel-2 Data Enhancement for Landscape Archaeology: The Case Study of the Foggia Province, Southern Italy

Abstract

This paper is focused on the use of satellite Sentinel-2 data for assessing their capability in the identification of archaeological buried remains. We selected the “Tavoliere delle Puglie” (Foggia, Italy) as a test area because it is characterized by a long human frequentation and is very rich in archaeological remains. The investigations were performed using multi-temporal Sentinel-2 data and spectral indices, commonly used in satellite-based archaeology, and herein analyzed in known archaeological areas to capture the spectral signatures of soil and crop marks and characterize their temporal behavior using Time Series Analysis and Spectral Un-mixing. Tasseled Cap Transformation and Principal Component Analysis have been also adopted to enhance archaeological features. Results from investigations were compared with independent data sources and enabled us to (i) characterize the spectral signatures of soil and crop marks, (ii) assess the performance of the diverse spectral channels and indices, and (iii) identify the best period of the year to capture the archaeological proxy indicators. Additional very important results of our investigations were (i) the discovery of unknown archaeological areas and (ii) the setup of a database of archaeological features devised ad hoc to characterize and categorize the diverse typologies of archaeological remains detected using Sentinel-2 Data.