Building archaeology tries to reconstruct the history of existing buildings, using direct observations of the building themselves. The archaeologists identify and analyse the following main data: materials, building techniques, continuousness and gaps, demolition tracks, the way a specific element sticks to the next one, etc. as significant traces of the passage of the monument throughout the different historical periods.

Building archaeology is nowadays a well defined research field even if it is on the border line between different disciplines. It was born, in fact, inside the digging archaeology, but it developed autonomously throughout the studies of the elevated structures. This discipline must be compared, for what regards its results, with the instruments and methods of historians and critics of architecture; it works, both on the academic and professional field, within architectural conservation, studying the same objects; it uses scientific and technological instruments to describe, to analyse and to date materials and architectural structures.