Report of a key survey of archaeological sites in the southern toe of Italy to discover Neolithic sites and documenting prehistoric trade in obsidian.

Twenty years ago, John Cherry looked forward to the day when archaeological survey projects working around the Mediterranean region (the 'Frogs round the pond') would begin to compare and synthesize the information they had collected. He anticipated researchers tackling big questions of interregional scope in new and interesting ways, working at a geographical scale considerably larger than that of the individual survey. Was his optimism misplaced? Despite the extraordinary growth of interest in field survey projects and regional analysis, and despite the developments in survey methodology that have been discussed and implemented in the past two decades, few scholars have attempted to use survey data in a comparative mode and to answer the broad-scale questions confronting social historians. In this volume, which is the outcome of an advanced Workshop held at the University of Michigan in 2002, a number of prominent archaeologists return to the question of comparability. They discuss the potential benefits of working in a comparative format, with evidence from many different Mediterranean survey projects, and consider the practical problems that present roadblocks to achieving that objective. From mapping and manuring to human settlement and demography, environment and culture, each addresses different questions, often with quite different approaches; together they offer a range of perspectives on how to put surveys "side-by-side". Contributors include Susan E Alcock, John Cherry, Jack L Davis, Peter Attema, Martijn van Leusen, James C Wright, Robin Osborne, David Mattingly, T J Wilkinson, and Richard E Blanton.

Explores the 7500-year history of the area around Tuscania near Rome using the results of an extended archaeological investigation.

Theory and Practice in Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives brings together leading scholars from the Old World and the Americas to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing archaeology today. These topics include archaeology and text, the future of large-scale archaeological fieldwork at individual sites, interpretation and preservation of archaeological sites and landscapes, past trajectories and new approaches to regional survey, and debates surrounding landscape and settlement archaeology. Essays by Old World archaeologists provide an overview of these themes, as well as a history of research over the last hundred years. These scholars review the major successes and shortcomings of that work, identifying critical issues that determine and define the field. These essays serve as a springboard for discussion and response by archaeologists working in the Americas and in other parts of the world. The combination of an Old World focus with responses from New World archaeologists provides a uniquely broad assessment of contemporary archaeological theory, methods, and practice throughout the world.

From 1974 to the present, the Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICA) at the University of Texas at Austin has carried out archaeological excavations and surveys in ancient territories (chorae) in southern Italy. This wide-ranging investigation, which covers a large number of sites and a time period ranging from prehistory to the Middle Ages, has unearthed a wealth of new information about ancient rural economies and cultures in the region. These discoveries will be published in two multivolume series (Metaponto and Croton). This volume on the Neolithic settlement at Capo Alfiere is the first in the Croton series. The Chora of Croton 1 reports the excavation results of a remarkable Neolithic site at Capo Alfiere on the Ionian coast. Capo Alfiere is one of a very few early inhabitation sites in this area to have been excavated extensively, with a full team of scientific specialists providing interdisciplinary studies on early farming and animal husbandry. It provides comprehensive documentation of the economy, material culture, and way of life in the central Mediterranean in the sixth and fifth millennia BC. Most notable are the remains of a wattle-and-daub hut enclosed within a massive stone wall. Unique for this area, this well-preserved structure may have been used for special purposes such as ritual, as well as for habitation. The presence of Stentinello wares shows that the range of this pottery type extended further east than previously thought and casts new light on the development of ceramics in the area.

The results of two related fieldwork projects are presented: a brief salvage excavation at Plakari (a Final Neolithic site near the modern town of Karystos) and a survey of prehistoric sites on the Paximadi peninsula (the western arm of the Karystos bay), both located in southern Euboea. These ventures were part of the larger mission of the Southern Euboea Exploration Project (SEEP), a multidisciplinary research program dedicated to the study of the Karystian past and which maintained a presence in southern Euboea for over 25 years. These projects have found that, contrary to what archaeologists once believed, southern Euboea was hardly an uninhabited and isolated region in prehistory. The inhabitants actively participated in the expanded maritime and social landscape that characterized the later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in the Aegean, taking part in exchange networks of stone, ceramics, marble figurines and vessels, and possibly agricultural goods and metalwork.

The Mediterranean landscape record is recognized for its length and richness and the opportunity it offers to study the interaction between humans and their landscape. This volume explores a variety of current archaeological issues in the context of specific landscapes from southern Spain through Greece and Cyprus to Jordan and from antiquity to recent times. Over the last 25 years, researchers have initiated a dramatic expansion in theoretical approaches--both anthropological and classical. Over the same time span, a huge volume of field survey projects has been carried out in the Mediterranean arena. The contributors to Mediterranean Archaeological Landscapes take stock of what has been learned, identify lacunae, and consider new approaches to our understanding of the rich surface landscape record of the Mediterranean. Their goal is to explore theoretically diverse interpretative themes and the methods that make those approachable.