This paper on perceptions of the Pontine Region in Central Italy starts out with a discussion of a map by the Renaissance artist and engineer Leonardo da Vinci which he made of the Pontine marshes in the early 16th century A.D. Since this map is the earliest rendering known of this former wetland, it is an important document for the reconstruction of the wet areas of the Pontine Region, a landscape unit that falls within the wider survey area of the Pontine Region Project.1 The example shows how deconstruction of historical documents, whether texts or maps, is a prerequisite for an understanding of how landscapes were differently perceived over time. After all we perceive what we want to see. A valid interpretation of Da Vincis's map for archaeological purposes requires, however, insight into both the context of the map and the way in which Leonardo da Vinci handled landscapes in his work. I discuss the map to demonstrate how archaeologists using historical and ethnographical documents run the risk of dealing with ‘outsider’ information whilst thinking they are dealing with sources that take them right inside the landscape, i.e. into the landscape of its past inhabitants. To avoid the pitfall of perceiving what one wants to see, the archaeologist is recommended to obtain insight into the various historical perceptions of his study area. I cite some instances from my work that show how it is possible to extract inside information from ‘outsider’ maps and texts concerning the Pontine Region. It is argued that such inside information is needed to complement Mediterranean survey methodology if the discipline is to develop landscape perception models of Mediterranean regions in antiquity that are not based on a priori notions. The delineation of preference surfaces in the landscape such as forwarded by the archaeological record, is proposed as a starting point for reconstructions of past collective perceptions.

The existence of regional traditions, in terms of methods and practices, has been an accepted fact in social sciences with a longer history than archaeology. In disciplines like anthropology and archaeology, with their strong emphasis on the description of phenomena that are peculiar to a given regional context, the development of a set of methodologies common to scholars dealing with the same region (a methodological ‘local knowledge’) has long been regarded as a natural tendency. It was only as a result of the main thrust connected with the appearance of processual archaeology that the idea (or should we say the myth?) of a universal methodology, i. e. one applicable to all contexts and periods, was developed. Thus, between the 1960s and the early 1980s, in parallel with a very positive standardization and intensification of archaeological techniques, a great effort went into the quest for an ultimate and universal field methodology (Binford 1964). As a result, a very wide agreement was reached fairly soon in some areas; for instance, as far as excavation is concerned, a kind of common practice was established, thanks to figures like Ph. Barker (1977) and E. C. Harris (1979). For some reason field survey has experienced a far less unilinear evolution, with sharp debates arising ever since the earliest attempts at a definition of a modern methodology (see for example the entertaining Hope-Simpson versus Cherry controversy, or the even more amusing debate imagined in Flannery 1976, 131–136).

This article discusses the development of the research strategy of the South Netherlands project conducted by the Instituut voor Pre- en Protohistorische Archeologie (IPP) of the University of Amsterdam. Its general objective is the study of long-term transformations in landscape and culture between ca 1000 B.C. and 1200 A.D. in the flat sandy region of the southern Netherlands and the adjacent part of northern Belgium. This area of ca 100 by 140 km is roughly bordered by the rivers Meuse, Demer and Scheldt (= MDS-region; see figure 1). The project has a history which started in the early 1970s. It evolved out of the ‘Kempenproject’ of the IPP and the Archeologisch Instituut van de Vrije Universiteit (AIVU) at Amsterdam. At present it is a major research programme of the IPP, with each year several large excavations dispersed over the region, but with a concentration in the south-eastern half of the province of North-Brabant (figure 1).

The development of regional projects over the last generation has been heavily influenced by changing theoretical agendas. Landscape archaeology had been a growing force since the 1920s, but after the highpoint of the ‘palaeoeconomy movement’ in the 1970s its ecological wing has been unjustly neglected over this period. The New Archaeology of the 60s and 70s injected a fascination with geographical, statistical and sampling approaches that is unlikely to disappear as an essential aspect for the analysis of settlement history. Post-processualism in the 80s and 90s has encouraged renewed interest in what has been termed the ‘culturalist’ perspective – the ways in which people's perceptions of landscape influence their behaviour across it. But it always needs repeating that this derivative movement of post-modernism is only one of several sets of approaches that has emerged since New Archaeology, so I prefer the term post-structuralist for all these ideas of the 80s and 90s: other packages that I have found exciting to read about and try to apply in archaeology include world systems/core periphery theory, the approaches of the French Annales school, and the rapidly-expanding chaos and complexity theory. My current reading of the theoretical scene sees a strong movement away from the rather tedious battle of the ‘isms’ and towards a new eclecticism – this is very much in tune with the current general intellectual trend in the West towards neo-pragmatism. Not to be forgotten finally is the greater involvement of academic regional projects with public archaeology and heritage management, areas of professional archaeology that have probably become the dominant ones over this same time-period. Indeed some regional projects, including my own in Boeotia, Central Greece, see the creation of a regional heritage centre as the logical outcome of what began as an academic research project.