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 central Italy new Roman towns are founded later than in other regions. The Roman city of Peltuinum on an almost flat land plateau lasts from 1st cent. B.C. till Late Antiquity, when a violent earthquake causes the end of the town system which changes the Roman organized town into a number of small scattered settlements. Based on the recovered data, the investigation expands from topographic and urban sphere to other fields: geological, economic, religious, and anthropological (both cultural and physical). The research results show the passage from the micro to the macro-history of Roman Italy and to the economy of the Empire. 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 for the plateau in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and later up to the fifties of the last century (the end of transhumance). The research on historic 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. Another noteworthy result is related to the anthropological analysis of the population in the late Roman times.
The most innovative topic of the research was yelded by the discovery of human fetuses, infants, young dogs and foals in the shafts used for the mechanism lifting and lowering the curtain in the Roman theatre. As already mentioned, the set of osteological findings leads towards an atypical but ritual burial and, until now, this is a unique context in the world of infant burials associated not only to puppies or dogs but to fooals too. In archaeological sphere the combination of human fetuses and newborns dogs can be closely compared to the findings in Kolonos Agoraios Athens (II cent. BC) and in the agora of Messene (III sec. BC), though infants and dogs are together in late antiques tombs in Lugnano in Teverina too (but in a traditional grave typology); the case of Peltuinum is unique until now because there are also foals clearly deposited in ritual sacrifice. Another hit is having documented infant burials. In fact, despite the reference models for pre-industrial populations foresee an infant mortality ranging from 30% up to 70%2, the necropolises very rarely yield these percentages. Several casual factors are responsible for this phenomenon, such as the lower grade of mineralization of the growing skeletons3, post-depositional processes, partial excavations and recoveries of the skeletal material; but the key role is played by the cultural choices involving different funerary rituals - in terms of burial typology and location ¿ for the infants than the general population. Few other interesting aspects of the research are significant from the anthropological and social point of view: the method of subsequent depositions (progressive accumulation according to attritional pattern of the deaths), the number of infants (about 100), the evidence that animals were sacrified for the infants. The findings interpretation is complex and 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 ancient architecture too: Roman public buildings show the persistent use of old techniques due to the use of local limestone. The findings confirm, therefore, the exploitation of the "KM 0" resources, characterizing the ergonomics of a large part of the Roman State. But also the Renaissance structures related to the reuse of ancient materials show amazing 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. 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. It 'clear that the excavation leads to an advancement of knowledge in other fields too: the economy of a mountainous region - where the subsistence economy was undoubtedly difficult to sustain - involved in Imperial interests through cattle moving managing. Starting from Claudius works on the close area of Fucinus lake getting to Flavians and Domitian involving in agricultural properties.