The geophysical survey was carried out at the request of Dr Vedia Izzet of the University of Southampton as part of a research project to investigate, through remote sensing, the ancient Etruscan town of Spina. The 3-week season had the aim of testing the response of the buried archaeology to surface survey.

It is clear that the survey results in one area are of singular importance towards the understanding of the urban settlement of Spina. In the area surveyed it is apparent that the frequency and shape of the linear features is repeated across the site, suggesting that the sub-surface structures being investigated are of various thicknesses, possibly with smaller building structures contained within them. The systematic layout of these features also strongly suggests that they most likely represent groups of residential buildings methodically laid out in insula blocks divided by an orthogonal grid system of roads.

The overall features displayed in the geophysics strongly support and confirm the location of an almost untouched Etruscan settlement. It is possible to identify the location of insulae blocks with divisions within them as well as the roads that separate each insula. It must also be noted that the large geological feature that runs across the site also appears to correspond to what archaeologists believed was the settlement’s original perimeter.