Normativa, protocolli e metodi dell’archeologia preventiva

Abstract

The extensive infrastructural transformations currently affecting our territories, although necessary, threaten the national
archaeological heritage. Therefore, the preventive assessment of archaeological interest is becoming increasingly crucial to
reconciling the constitutional mandate to protect and preserve the national cultural heritage with the nation’s development
needs. The paper is divided into several sections: the first examines the legislative evolution of Preventive Archaeology (PA);
it then describes the procedural phases, with a specific focus on the two fundamental pillars that underpin the PA’s procedural
structure: the definitions of archaeological potential and archaeological risk. The two main innovations recently introduced in
the procedure are then discussed: the National Geoportal for Archaeology (GNA) and the GNA template. The former is a true
Web-GIS, created to archive and freely distribute data from AP activities; its use has now been extended to all the data of Italian
archaeology. To standardise procedures for collecting, archiving, and uploading data needed to populate the GNA, a template
based on GIS architecture has also introduced and made mandatory. Given the professional and scientific skills required to
implement the PA’s complex procedures, professional training is fundamental. Therefore, the paper concludes with some
considerations on the qualification and training system the archaeologists, including the challenging relationship between the
craft of archaeology and the academic system.