L’appoderamento agrario dell’agro suasano alla luce delle nuove ricerche

The Suasan agrarian parcelling in light of the new researches · The remains of the ancient Roman city of Suasa, investigated for over 30 years by the University of Bologna, are lo- cated in the middle valley of the Cesano river in the Marche region. The history of the city and its territory can be outlined by analyzing the geomorphological evolution of the valley. The case study of Suasa allows us to reconstruct the genesis of the urban centre as a consequence of the rural settlement and of the previous structuring of the road network and of the agricultural land use, which took place after the Roman conquest of the Gallic countryside (295 B.C.). The physical shape of the valley played a decisive role even in the phases of depopulation and crisis of the hydraulic system accentuated after the end of the Roman era. Although these circum- stances have led to a poor conservation of the centuriation, the continuous monitoring by means of aerial and geophysical surveys, combined with some recent archaeological dis- coveries, allows for a new reconstruction of the centuriatio and more generally of the Roman landscape in the Cesano valley.