How Far Down? Interdisciplinary Discussions and Multimodal Investigations to Understand the Potential of Multispectral Remote Sensing

"How far down can it see?" is one of the typical questions when it comes to UAV multispectral remote sensing for archaeology. Since the identification of buried remains is indirect through cropmarks observation, we asked ourselves how deep cropmarks can reveal the buried remains by analysing the complex relationship they have with vegetation. A selected number of contexts of the pre-Roman cities from Falerii and Veii have been studied through agronomic analysis on the one hand and GPR and stratigraphic excavation on the other. The results confirmed the effectiveness of this methodology for land survey, and not only do they demonstrate the ability to identify remains at a greater depth than might have been expected, but they have also made evident the difficulties of environmental analysis, which is crucial at the start of any remote sensing campaign, as well as in the subsequent study of anomalies.