This volume brings together a number of case studies in the landscape archaeology of South and Central Italy by distinguished scholars writing from first-hand experience. The contributions illustrate the growing interest among Mediterranean landscape archaeologists in long-term regional trends and processes, such as the centralization of indigenous society during protohistory, the interaction between indigenous and Greek and Roman colonial culture, and the formation of the early historic landscape of town and country. The contributions also reflect the increasing sophistication of field methods and material studies as well as theoretically informed desktop studies, which now succeed in mapping a wide range of forms of permanent human settlement and ritual activity in the Italian landscape - from subsistence farms to complex urban settlements and from ritual cave sites to institutionalized sanctuaries. Contributions by Marianne Kleibrink, Alessandro Vanzetti, Helle Horsn Aes, Bert Nijboer, Gert-Jan Burgers, Peter Attema & Martijn van Leusen.