This research project aimed to analyze and model settlement patterns and long-term land use in mountain environments, focusing especially on the integration of lowland and mountain in a comparative way in several case studies. The theoretical framework of the project incorporated landscape archaeology as well as computational archaeology.

To build diachronic models of resources exploitation, land use and movement practices on a micro-regional scale, the data on test areas in Central European, Alpine and Mediterranean environment was analyzed using a GRASS GIS-based approach.

Fundamental research in computational archaeology were carried out by elaborating analytical grid-based and agent-based methods for the evaluation and understanding of the long-term ecological and economic impact of agropastoral activity, the organization and perception of marginal landscapes in the transect plain/middle altitude/high altitude.

Intensive and extensive field survey and paleo-ecological sampling in the test areas will allow us to increase our knowledge of the settlement patterns in the middle and high mountains as well as to verify the reliability of the applied modeling procedure.