In 2006 and 2007, the editors of this volume organized sessions at the annual meetings of the European Association of Archaeologists (Cracow, Poland and Zadar, Croatia) entitled The Roman Empire and Beyond in response to the increasing amount of archaeological work being conducted in Central and Eastern Europe, areas where the Roman Empire met Barbaricum. The sessions concerned three general themes: the development of Rome's older Central/Eastern provinces, Roman-Native interactions within the Empire and along Rome's frontier zone, and Native-Roman interactions in Barbaricum. This book is based upon the two EAA sessions, whilst additional papers were solicited from several scholars who had not attended the EAA meetings, but whose work was deemed highly relevant for this volume.

These twenty-seven papers result from a conference held in Rome in 2002, organised by the American Academy in Rome and the Ecole Francaise de Rome. The conference brought together prehistorians, classical archaeologists and medievalists with the aim of discussing the archaeological methodology behind the analysis of industry and commerce in ancient Italy. Arranged thematically, the papers discuss: textile production, the supply of foodstuffs, commercial systems, the production and exchange of pottery, the production of glass and metal, the organisation of the building industry and historiographic studies. The temporal scope of the volume is large, covering the 2nd millennium BC to the medieval period. The case studies are well-illustrated and all begin with an English abstract. One paper in English, six in French, the rest in Italian. The introduction is in English.