The research focuses on issues related to urbanization in central Apennines since pre-Roman times. In a region of rough morphology the Roman intervention strategy is cautious as to the land system economy (transhumance) and to urban planning (few small settlements). In inner centarl Italy new Roman towns are founded later than in other regions. The Roman city of Peltuinum on an almost flat land plateau lasts from Ist cent. B.C. till Late Antiquity, when a violent earthquake causes the end of the town system which changes into small scattered settlements. Based on the recovered data, the investigation expands from topographic and urban sphere to other fields: geological, economic, religious, and anthropological (cultural, physical). The research results show the passage from the micro to the macro-history. The geographic location and geohydrological characteristics, which in prehistoric age had made the site a stop point of the flocks, go on ensuring the city as a trade center in Roman Italy sheep tracks. After the 5th cent. A.D. seismic event, though loosing the status of city, the same prerogatives confirm this function in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and later up to the fifties of the last century (the end of transhumance). The analysis of the Roman city and of its heirs, the monasteries, allows to retrace not only the economic history of the area, but also the series of earthquakes which had important consequences in the regional history and on Rome itself. The research on ancient earthquakes and on the subsequent reconstruction has opened up other research fronts. One of noteworthy significance is related to the actual seismic situation: the archaeological data of the 5th cent. earthquake in Peltuinum matches with other data in inner Abruzzi region, helping to draw times and repeating of earthquakes aiming to seismic research.
The excavation of the last theatre shaft revealed once more the presence of human fetuses, infants, dogs and horses. The research on this subject is going on, beeing paid close attention by archaeo-anthropolgists, because Peltuinum's findings are unique in documented infant burials: the shafts used for the mechanism moving the curtain in the Roman theatre became the deposit of dead babies and young animals. Research leads towards an atypical but ritual burial, which can be compared to the findings in Kolonos Agoraios Athens (II cent. BC) and in the agora of Messene (III sec. BC), though not completely, due to the different species of animals deposited as babies companions in Peltuinum site. Osteological analysis must be carried on for all the elements, as the completion of structural, archaeological, anthropological data is fundamental to the debate progress which opens new interpretations on Roman Italy society in the transition to the Middle Ages. The research is getting interesting results in the field of Public Space too: at present the transformation of the Forum area in Late Antiquity is a key topic in urbanism research. Together with the abandonment of Roman tradition and the consequent dismantling of the urban buildings, the wide open areas of towns turn to different activities being invaded by workshops or cultivated allotments, as it is the case of Peltuinum. Also the Renaissance workers housing related to the reuse of ancient materials show interesting architectural devices considering the function which they were intended to have: sheltering workers exploiting the theatre ruins as a quarry for material to be used in the construction of a nearby rural church collapsed after the XIVth century devastating erthquake. The direct link between the dismantling site of a big Roman building and the construction site of a church is not easily documented by a stratigraphic excavation as it is here the case. The excavation leads to an advancement of knowledge in other fields too: crossing the city with the transhumance axis, often denied, is documented here by a stone discovered in the course of the research (the inscription on the stone belongs to the third century AD) as indeed it happens in Saepinum and Tibur; moreover the stratigraphy of the various layers of Via Claudia Nova show the very lon use of the sheep track cutting the city. Another interesting topic is the consideration of the high organizing level of the reign of Emperor Claudius: in central Apennines his works expand beyond the Fucino boundaries and precise the Emperor operational reference to the figure of Caesar. In fact ancient sources connect both Claudius and Caesar to improving the Apennines area where the subsistence economy was undoubtedly difficult to sustain and, on the contrary, could help in providing wheat supply for Roman population (think to the problems hitting Rome due to the famine of 42 A.D.).