The Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London has set up a sub-committee to encourage co-ordinated research aimed at deciphering the organization of the landscape from the earliest times to the recent past. After a detailed consideration of the evidence, it decided to concentrate its attention, in the first instance, on the chalk lands of central southern England, where the spread of detectable remains is denser and more widespread than anywhere else in the country, and where the archaeological material in the form of artefacts and faunal remains is best preserved in the greatest quantity.