This paper present the results of the CANS project (Conservation of cAns in collectioNS), an interdisciplinary research aiming at proposing conservation strategies for full cans, still retaining their original contents, in museums and collections. The paper includes the outcomes of the condition report carried out on 150 cans from 5 Swiss collections, the correlation between state of conservation, content and age of the can and the extensive characterization of the cans' materials for a better understanding of the corrosion mechanisms.

Semantic segmentation of 3D models of ancient and historic buildings is an important modern Cultural Heritage topic. This work reports our preliminary results on the creation of a software system for partial semiautomatic semantic segmentation of building 3D models produced by photogrammetric surveys, and their fruition by Web technologies. These results were obtained in collaboration with Corvallis SPA (Padua – Italy, http://www.corvallis.it).

A very useful technique that can provide the local composition of a very thin material, such as the metal leaves of mosaic tesserae, is the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) coupled to Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry (EDS). However a careful analytical strategy must be considered when dealing with tesserae samples, because the metal leaf is extremely thin (0.2 – 1 µm), whereas the thickness of the support and the cartellina glasses are usually more than three order of magnitude thicker, and many artefacts could arise from the electron and X-Ray scattering in solids and EDS detector – sample configurations and arrangements. In order to optimize the microanalysis strategy of mosaic tesserae, in this work the effects related to the metal leaf thickness, SEM-EDS setup and detector physics were considered, providing results that could be very helpful to researchers involved in this field. Furthermore, this work provides a correct micronanoanalytical strategy to obtain an accurate SEMEDS quantitative analysis also of other ultrathin layers, substrates, composites and powder materials.

A total of 909 samples of subfossil wood were collected in 38 high elevation sites of the Italian Alps. 517 of them were dated to the calendar year through dendrochronology, allowing the construction of 8 mean chronologies, which all together cover a period of around 11500 years. Such long tree-ring chronologies demonstrate to be a powerful tool for dating of archaeological woods in Italy and abroad.

Ammaia is a deserted Roman town located in the region of Alto Alentejo, in Portugal, included in ancient province of Lusitania. In recent years, a series of geophysical surveys have been carried out in the framework of the European Community (EC) funded project Radio-Past, in the supposed intra-mural surface and suburbia. A 'total coverage' magnetometer survey was achieved by several teams, using different instruments in an around the ancient town. The selected sectors have been investigated with high-resolution Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and earth resistance methods, revealing a highly detailed layout of the town with its most important monuments and infrastructures and disclosing crucial aspects of the surrounding humanized landscape of Roman times. These data have been integrated with different other non-destructive geo-archaeological methodologies. Here the interpretation of geomagnetic survey, aerial photography and surface artefact collection are discussed with respect to the main results and to certain data-integration strategies.