Landscape archaeology in the Ravenna hinterland: the survey at Cotignola (RA), 2018

The “Bassa Romandiola” project was promoted by the University of Bologna and the “Centro di Studi sulla Romandiola Nord Occidentale” with the aim of investigating the north-western part of the Ravenna region (Italy), the so-called Bassa Romagna. In this paper, we present the synthesis of the results of the 2018 field campaign, which focused on the area of Cotignola (RA) and included an artefact survey and five targeted manual auger cores. Despite the biases that affected the data collected, the results shed light on a general transformation that involved this part of the Ravenna region between the 12th and the 14th centuries CE, which caused a settlements selection process and the alteration of the rural landscape and its landforms.