Italy’s Hidden Hillforts: A Large-Scale Lidar-Based Mapping of Samnium

This article presents the first results of the Ancient Hillforts Survey, a large-scale lidar-based analysis and ground-truthing aimed at creating a representative and comparative dataset of hillforts in Italy unbiased by site location or vegetational canopy. An analysis of 15,300 km2 spanning Campania, Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, and Apulia detected 305 new suspected hillforts. The area was visually interpreted using image blends of lidar visualizations (VAT method) based on in-house-generated digital terrain models. Interobserver and intraobserver interpretational biases were tested and CORINE Land Cover data used to evaluate the representativeness of the legacy data compared with the new dataset and to estimate the number of sites for no-data areas. The results from the Daunian mountains (Apulia) are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in advancing knowledge of historically under-surveyed areas and in addressing long-term debates. Here, the data showed a novel hillfort system interpretable as Samnite, dating between the 6th and 3rd century b.c.