The Tavoliere plain, south-east Italy, is one of the most important regions in the world for the vastness of its early Neolithic settlement. Its villaggi trincerati (ditched villages) were established by the first farmers of Italy at the start of the sixth millennium bc. Occupation lasted for over a millennium, with more than 1,000 ditched settlements of varying sizes up to c 2km across. While not all were occupied contemporaneously, the density is exceptional; however, the small scale of excavation and a lack of visible features due to ploughing has resulted in a lack of detailed understanding of them.

This substantial two-volume work presents a large-scale synthetic survey of the villaggi trincerati of the Tavoliere plain. It does so in the context of a range of co-related social and sensory scales of action. It is a product of extensive fieldwork and archival research from 2002–13 that formed the Tavoliere-Gargano Prehistory Project, directed by Sue Hamilton, FSA and Ruth Whitehouse, FSA and funded by the British Academy, the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the National University of Ireland Galway. Volume 1, Social and Sensory Landscapes of the First Farmers of Italy additionally introduces new methods of sensory archaeology that potentially have wide application in archaeology as a whole; volume 2, The Bradford Archive of Aerial Photographs by Mike Seager Thomas, provides a major interpreted resource of aerial photographs with maps and ground-truthed material for the ditched villages. The two volumes are intended to be used together, side by side. Based on praxeology (the theory of human sensor-motricity/techniques of the body as socially determined [or a socially determining] practice) (Warnier Reference Warnier2001, 6), the volumes contribute to research concerning the interpretation of social landscapes.

Within volume 1, Chapters 1–8 address the primary aim of developing new field methods to allow the team to explore the social and sensory dimensions of the Neolithic through the generation of new data. Volume 1 opens with a description of the theoretical background and methodology, presented under some clear and enticing sub-headings such as ‘Making the Invisible Visible’. In Chapter 2, which is an introduction to the Neolithic of south-east Italy and the ditched villages of the Tavoliere, it becomes clear that the work under review is one of the few major studies of its subject in English, the majority of earlier significant publications having been in Italian. Chapter 3 is both fascinating and illuminating. It looks at Tavoliere landscapes present and past and introduces the sensory concepts. Colour, reflection and light are all discussed, and readers are invited to ‘Smell the Neolithic’ and ‘Taste the Neolithic’. Chapter 4 details the methodology and methods equally poetically. Chapter 5, by Andrew Dufton, addresses the why and how of Neolithic settlement location through a hybrid of quantitative and qualitative use of GIS. Chapter 6 focuses on the aerial photographic archive and the mass survey. Chapter 7, on exploring home territories, looks at phenomenological site catchment analysis and sensory approaches. Chapter 8 discusses the sensual and social lives of the villaggi trincerati communities before the conclusions are presented in Chapter 9, where closure is brought to discussions of the pre-existing data. Additional research is presented in Chapter 10 by Mike Seager Thomas, which looks at geomorphological and artefactual investigations on Neolithic features exposed at two gravel quarries. This was undertaken opportunistically or by invitation and is structurally separate from the main project. Chapter 11 is about sensory worlds of Grotta Scaloria.

Volume 2 presents the documentation of the aerial photographic archive, which consists of the 600-odd digitised air photographs of the Bradford collection. John Bradford (1918–75) was a photo interpretation officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps. The photographs were selected from a vast collection of aerial photographs taken shortly before the start of the Allied invasion of mainland Italy in September 1943. These added to an already significant archive produced during the earlier Sicily campaign. With the exception of a series of oblique photographs taken by Bradford and Peter Williams-Hunt, the intention of which was to record archaeology, the original purpose of these images was military. The structure of this volume begins with an introduction to the Bradford archive in Chapter 2, before covering eight regions, one per chapter: Region 1, Lucera; Region 2, Upper Celone/Foggia southwest; Region 3, Upper Cervaro/Castelluccio; Region 4, Cerignola West; Region 5, Lago Salpi/Zapponeta south; Region 6, Lower Celine/Foggia northeast; Region 7, Candelaro/Amendola; and Region 8, San Severo. It concludes with a bibliography and index of sites.

There is considerable overlap across the two volumes: the mapping and georeferencing of the sites in volume 2 are central to the work described in volume 1, while information derived from work in the field is included in site descriptions in volume 2. This provides a smooth transition back and forth between the two books.

Traditionally, Tavoliere field research has focused primarily on site typology, social hierarchy and artefact types; however, these publications differ markedly in their approach. Bringing together a pair of volumes of this magnitude, covering such a period of fieldwork, is a significant undertaking in its own right. To do this with such an original, and in places ground-breaking, methodology is exceptional. Their development and application of field methods of sensory archaeology are foundational, and the co-existence of a plethora of traditional and interpretative fieldwork regimes is both ambitious and impressive. The diagrams are fresh and the aerial photographs are stunning. There are very few areas of weakness; however, one minor point is that in places the object photography has some fairly significant shadows. Referencing is extensive and broad in scope.

The work concludes that the world of the villaggi trincerati was maintained and regenerated as a series of socially nested scales of settlement that allowed uptake of new land and expanding populations without the emergence of hierarchical organisational structures. As one might expect, the opportunity is taken to suggest future work and sites to be investigated, as the team continues to contextualise their phenomenological investigations of this hugely significant landscape. Overall, these volumes are highly sophisticated, beautifully written and make an important contribution to our understanding of it.