The Biferno Valley survey : the archaeological and geomorphological record / edited by Graeme Barker.

A project begun in 1975 is documented and summarized by this report of the archaeological investigation of a typical Mediterranean landscape. The purpose of the project was to determine how and why the Biferno River Valley developed in the way that it did. The fieldwork and subsequent analyses drew together a group of scholars from a variety of disciplines in the humanities and the sciences, who applied their specialities within an integrated Annales school methodology. Most of the chapters have multiple authors. The landscape studied lies in the modern political region of Molise. Although it is one of the most underinvestigated parts of Italy, it does include the oldest well-studied site in Europe, Isernia, left behind by Paleolithic scavengers over 750,000 years ago. The archaeological fieldwork, mostly surface survey, includes material down to the present century. Not really a history or anthropology, the work is essentially archaeogeography. Documentation presented here supports the general conclusions that human and cultural forces were as influential as natural forces in creating and degrading the landscape, once the terrain existed at all. A technical companion volume, The Biferno Valley Survey, includes detailed topographic maps, the survey gazetteer, sediment descriptions, and details of test excavations and geophysical surveys of late Iron Age Samnite and Roman sites. It also includes all the faunal data, unillustrated, as well as that pertaining to slags and quernstones. The Samnite and Roman finds, more numerous than the prehistoric and some later historic remains, are illustrated and described here. A Mediterranean Valley is suitable for upper-division undergraduates and above. Because of its technical nature, The Biferno Valley Survey is most appropriate for graduate and professional readers. R. M. Rowlett University of Missouri--Columbia