Using GIS in the diachronic study of late roman settlement transformations: preliminary data and possible relations to environment change in the north-eastern Adriatic

In the paper the use of GIS to diachronically analyse the settlement pattern detected through archaeological research is illustrated on the case study of the island of Rab (NE Adriatic, Croatia) and correlated with a model of the island's economic output, its environmental features and available data on regional changing climatic conditions. The obtained results are then interpreted within a wider Adriatic setting and a current theoretical framework which allows to correlate socio-economic and environmental indicators in the interpretation of archaeologically detected changes in the use of the landscape.