16. Early urban and colonized regions of central and south Italy: a case study in comparative landscape archaeology Peter Attema Abstract Systematic field surveys and topographical research undertaken to date in varioz/s Italian regions south of Rome show that responses to early urbanization in central and south Italy, and the intelply of early urbanization with Greek and Roman colonization, dff ered widely between regions. In this paper a tentative comparison is presented between the early protohistoric and subsequent Hellenistic and Roman settlement dynamics in two regions in central and southern Italy, the Pontine region and the Sybaris plain. The focus is on the transitional period between the tribally organized Iron Age societies in these regions, and the development of early urbanized societies. It is argued that, while early urbanization in the Pontine region (south Lazio) in the late Iron Age and Archaic periods (seventh-sixth centuries BC) can be viewed as a gradual and internally-triggered peer poliy process, the process of early urbanization in the Sibaritide (Calabria) was strongly inluenced by seventh and sixth century BC Greek colonization. In the latter region the process of urbanization depended on the centrally located Greek colony of Sybaris, its successor ciy Thurii and the later Roman colonia of Copia which was established on the same spot. The process is here described as occurring on the level of long-term settlement dynamics rather than as one of a priori Greek political domination. It is observed that although urbanization of the tribal Iron Age landscape followed Greek colonization, the political, ethnic and cultural implications of this process are still vely unclear and need to be examined in much more detail. In the Pontine Region urbanization spread over the landscape from the seventh century BC onwards, radiating from the Alban Hills and slowly pushing into peripheral areas. A similar process was taking place in the area around Rome. In the archaic period, and certainly ater the ith century BC, Rome itsef became the determining factor in promoting (and later curbing) urbanization in the Pontine region through the installation of colonies, while at the same time inluencing the development of the marginal areas along the coast. This paper, then, is intended to outline in general terms two of the models of urbanization and colonization that are currently being developed by the Regional Pathwys to Complexiy (RPC) Project at the Groningen Institute of Archaeoloy and the Archaeological Institute of the Free Universiy of Amsterdam. The implicit methodological problems are also discusse. Methodological pitfalls of com parative landscape archaeology T 0 assess the diferences in regional development in fTst millennium BC Italy, and to understand their meaning in the wider context of ancient Italian urbanization and Greek and Roman colonization, it is necessary to correct for research biases in the datasets that are being analyzed. Before dealing with the Pontine region and the Sybaritide, it is instruetive to illustrate the methodological problems involved by presenting the results of an unpublished graduate thesis on urbanization and colonization in early Italy (de Neef 1998). This was aimed at a eomparative study of settlement pattems in the plain and surrounding hins of Metapontum (Basilieata) and in 147 the plain of Poseidonia (Campania). The study eoncluded that the transformation of the indigenous Iron Age landscape of the tenth to early seventh centuries BC into that of the 'Greek colonial' landscape of the late seventh to fourth centuries Be in both areas was the result of a gradual process of change. De Neef also noted marked diferences in their development. The protohistorie settlement systems that the Greeks had to eome to terms with were very diferent in eaeh ease, while the outeome of the proeess difered greatly too onee the Greek colonial experiment had materialized into the Greek urban nuclei of Metapontum and Poseidonia.