Strategies and new technologies for urban archaeology: Matera, a town of Unesco World Heritage

In the frame of the three last decades of experience in Italian urban archaeology, we are working to reconsiderate the dynamics of growth/development/fall of urban sites in south Italy, in particular in the region of Basilicata. The history of ancient towns in this area has been characterized by a low number of urban settlement in ancient greek and roman period, in which we are able to recognize the topographical transformation through late antiquity until the middle age, due to archaeological investigations. The majority of ancient towns has been abandoned, and the new towns were located just close to the old ones, so we can talk about “archaeology of towns”, but a very particular situation is represented by the town of Matera, one of the most famous rupestrian settlement of the Mediterranean basin, mentioned in the UNESCO World Heritage List.