WW1: High Alpine Survey Data - Work in Progress

Last summer we've had the possibility to survey along the first Italian front-line of WW1 on the ridge between the the two strategically important summits of Mt. Quaternà (2.503m) an Col Rosson (2.305m).
(Commissioned by the Algudnei-Mueseum in Dosoledo) 
They are situated in the north of the Italian region of Veneto, near to the Austrian and Tyrolean border.

The project area. Pay attention to the trenches in the middleground.

It took several weeks to document an unexpected amount of military remains built between May 1915 and November 1917.

Trenches at the foot of Col Rosson

The central part of our approach was an intensive and very accurate DGPS-survey of every visible structure on the surface, attended by sfm-documentation of objects of special interest. Also underground structures, first of all caverns of different typology, were recorded with 3d-pointclouds.

Commemorative inscription of a machine-gun detachment.

Furthermore we've made several thousands of pictures with recorded position of the photographer and viewing direction.

Overview of the survey results

At this moment we've competed the postprocessing of the approx. 80.000 GPS points, prising out 4.194 features with an individual ID number and a description in English, Italian and German language.

High density of remains around of Mt. Rosson.

The next step will be the archaeological interpretation of the results, incorporating documents and maps of different military archives.

First and second Italian line.

The fieldwork was crucially supported by our colleagues Michele Mazzurana and Gianluca Fondriest.
The whole project would not have been possible without the direction of Daniela Zambelli and the confidence of Algudnei's director Arrigo De Martin Mattiò.
All images in this article are free, following the terms of CC-BY-4.0 Creator: Arc-Team Archaeology