Landscape Archaeology the Mediterranean Basin

Abstract

Chapter 1 focuses on the state-of-the-art in archaeological survey around the Mediterranean, highlighting the gap between the development and application of archaeological research in urban and formerly-urban areas as compared with the less often explored challenges of the open countryside. Starting with the development of landscape studies and survey methods over the past hundred years, the chapter highlights the achievements and shortcomings of work in this field, especially within Italy. It does not, however, gloss over the problems that still remain. The final part of the chapter turns to the key issues of the present day, emphasizing that progressive advances in the available investigative tools, and in the overall methodological framework, have still to overcome significant endemic problems in the pursuit of this field of research.