Introduction

In recent years I have been involved in archaeological fieldwork in both Samnium and Lycia. In the case of Samnium, I took part in the San Vincenzo project directed by Richard Hodges of Sheffield University (see Hodges and Mitchell 1985). It involved a multi-period field-survey of the upper Volturno valley, which in the early mediaeval era formed the lands of the abbey of San Vincenzo; I also undertook fieldsurvey in the territory of the Ligures Baebiani, under my own auspices (Patterson 1988). In Turkey, I took part in the Balboura Project directed by J.J.Coulton (Coulton 1987b) which has been investigating the ancient city of Balboura in northern Lycia; in fact, this paper owes its origin to attempts to devise models for settlement patterns and urban change in Lycia, derived from the situations identified in Samnium. The comparison is by no means an artificial one: firstly, despite their very different political histories, Samnium and Lycia have much in common. Both areas are composed of rough mountains and small, fertile, plains; in general they are poorly

served by ancient routes, largely because of the difficulty of the terrain-and economically speaking, too, they are very much ‘off the beaten track’. Clearly there is scope here for productive comparison and contrast.