Archeologists Discover Entire Roman City Without Any Digging

Beneath the dirt, the lost Roman city of Falerii Novi has laid undisturbed for over a thousand years. Now, archaeologists have digitally mapped it through GPR (i.e. Ground Penetrating Radar). What they found, recently published in the journal Antiquity, is a prescient look into the non-invasive archaeology of the future.

As Cambridge University Press reported late last week in the midst of global protests and ongoing isolation, researchers at Ghent University and The University of Cambridge have completed the first-ever complete high-resolution GPR survey of a complete Roman town––all done without digging, looting, or otherwise disturbing the landscape.

Instead, with what looks like a piece of farming equipment, archaeologists have spent the past year "tilling" the ground with an advanced radar rig hitched to the back of an ATV. As radio waves were shot into the earth and bounced back up into specialized software, a stunningly-detailed digital map of everything that lied beneath the soil began to emerge, showing the incredible possibility new technologies can bring to the field.

According to archaeologists, the site––buried less than a meter beneath the surface of a tranquil country meadow 50km north of modern Rome––was once home to a bustling city, complete with a bath house, theater, shopping district, and several temples. Digital archaeologists also discovered a kind of monument never seen before in historical analyses of the ancient empire, potentially unearthing new clues into the pre-Roman religious practices of the native Italians who lived there before.

By sampling at different depths, researchers were also able to map out the layers of human activity present at the site—so called time-slices—revealing how the city functioned and grew from its original founding in 241 BC to its eventual abandonment in Europe’s medieval period. 

Unlike traditional means of excavation, this type of archaeological survey is inherently non-destructive, leaving the natural landscape and the important archaeological strada beneath undisturbed. It may also pave a new way forward for discovery of ancient civilizations without the need for removing precious artifacts from the soil––a technique long-tied and criticized to the imperialism and historic colonization of ancient cultures. 

Read more on University of Cambridge.