The Pontine Region Project (PRP) is an on-going landscape archaeological project in the Pontine region, situated c. 60 km south of Rome in Lazio, Central Italy that started in the late 1980s as a side project to the Dutch excavations at Satricum, but soon developed into an independent research project. The project combines archaeological field surveys, geophysical prospections, geo-archaeological investigations and targeted excavations to study the long-term history of settlement and landscape in the Pontine region, with a particular focus on processes of centralisation in the late Iron Age and Archaic period, and on the impact of Roman colonisation in the Republican period.

The project has gone through several phases in which different landscape zones (Lepine uplands, interior plain, coastal areas as well as the adjacent Alban Hills and Sacco valley). Recent research conducted within the PRP includes the investigation of Minor Centres (see the project ‘Fora, stationes and sanctuaries) and the Avellino project, which aims to investigate the impact of the Bronze Age eruption of the Vesuvius on settlement and landscape. Together with Dr. Gijs Tol (University of Melbourne), I am currently conducting new field research to investigate Roman off-site landscapes.

Related research

• The Pontine Region Project
  • The Rome Hinterland Project