This project investigates the changing social structure of small communities from the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 2400-400 BC) in central Adriatic Italy. Archaeologists still know little about how these small-scale agro-pastoralists were organised. Grave finds show an increasing social hierarchy from the Late Bronze Age onwards, which culminates in rich aristocratic graves during the Iron Age. However, no large-scale state formation took place and no central cities emerged. Because little is known about the settlements and surrounding territories of these groups, we miss a lot of information about the socio‐economic and socio‐political organization at a community level. This research aims to rectify this situation by investigating selected settlements and their surroundings intensively using non-destructive methods. With geophysical techniques such as magnetometry and electrical resistance measurements, maps of selected areas are made. On the basis of these plans, the internal organisation of these settlements is analysed spatially. Hereby, characteristics such as house clusters size of buildings, common defences, roads, workshops and field boundaries will be investigated and interpreted. This approach is based on the idea that cultural and social rules of societies are expressed by the use and arrangement of their immediate environment.