Mission

The Sangro Valley Project (SVP) is sponsored by the University of Oxford (UK) and Oberlin College (USA) in collaboration with the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Abruzzo and employs a multi-disciplinary team of specialists from Australia, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, and the United States. The project’s goal is to characterize and investigate the nature, pattern and dynamics of human habitation and land use in the longue durée within the context of a Mediterranean river valley system—the Sangro River valley in the territory of the ancient Samnites.

The Sangro River begins in the heart of the Parco Nazionale of the Abruzzo in the central Apennine region of Italy. Most of the valley lies in the modern region of  the Abruzzo (for a stretch of the middle valley the river forms the boundary with the region of the Molise); this boundary corresponds to the northern edge of the territory of the pre-Roman people known as the Samnites.  Large parts of ancient Samnium still remain relatively unknown, and the results of fieldwork for all periods continue to surprise and challenge investigators. The SVP’s current mapping of the ancient Samnite social landscape will add a new set of peoples and type of geographic region—rural uplands—to a growing corpus of regional studies of other Italic peoples. Together these studies will create a more nuanced interregional map of the various indigenous groups that inhabited ancient Italy and allow comparison of how these groups were differentially incorporated into the Roman Empire.

The Sangro Valley Project was initiated in 1994 by John Lloyd (Institute of Archaeology, Oxford University), Neil Christie (Leicester University), Gary Lock (Institute of Archaeology, Oxford University), Amalia Faustoferri and Cinzia Morelli (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Abruzzo). Since Lloyd’s untimely death in 1999, an Anglo-American team (headed by Susan Kane, Oberlin College and Edward Bispham, University of Oxford) has continued investigations in the Middle Sangro Valley, focusing on the dominating feature of the Sangro River middle valley’s landscape—Monte Pallano—and its environs. Through its work, the SVP has convincingly demonstrated that this area of ancient Samnium was a more dynamic participant in the larger historical processes involving both Italy and the wider Adriatic region than previously thought.

The project sustains both a research program and a month-long didactic field school for undergraduates and sees the symbiotic relation between the two as fundamental to its mission.  The Field School trains twelve to twenty undergraduate students annually, several of whom typically return for subsequent seasons to pursue independent research projects, initiated in collaboration with the project’s senior specialists. The Project also encourages participation by doctoral and post-doctoral students through Research Associate accreditation. It also seeks to engage in knowledge transfer to the benefit of the local communities, as well as acting as a professional research partner for the Soprintendenza in its work in the region.