Settlement and Landscape Development in the Homs Region, Syria. Report on work undertaken during 2001-2003

This report presents a summary of the methods and some preliminary results of fieldwork by an interdisciplinary research team studying the landscape history of the upper Orontes Valley near Homs in western Syria. The particular focus of the project is to document long-term inter-relationships between settlement and landscape in two adjacent but divergent regions. Geomorphological fieldwork on the Pleistocene and Holocene environments is considered first, with discussions focussing on the terraces of the River Orontes and the associated artefact material. Next, the geo-correction of satellite imagery and its profitable use in conducting fieldwork is outlined. What follows are some initial thoughts and results obtained for each region through three seasons of extensive and intensive fieldwork survey as guided by remote sensing methods. For the Southern Area these results are revealing differences in the densities of ‘off- site’ surface material. In the basalt region of the Northern Area satellite imagery has simplified methods of site detection. The report concludes with some preliminary observations on the main trends of settlement history that are emerging from the data