Monti Lucretili Landscape Project. Surveying an upland landscape around the Montefalco castle (2020-2022)

The Monti Lucretili Landscape Project (MoLuLaP) aims to reconstruct the long-term landscape history of a mountainous area northeast of Tivoli (Latium, Italy), included in the Monti Lucretili Regional Natural Park. One of the main aims of the research project is to look at the changing patterns of economic activity that have affected the landscape over time, such as agricultural exploitation, pastoralism, and transhumance practices, and their effects on the environment and on the settlement pattern. The first archaeological survey campaigns between 2020 and 2022 focused on the Montefalco castle, one of several deserted medieval castles in the area, and the surrounding landscape, and were conducted by the Department of Humanities of the University of Roma Tre. The fortified villages formed a network of highly nucleated fortified centres, each controlling and exploiting a well-defined micro-region within the wider area, which are selected as optimal sample research units to be investigated in the long-term.