The Danebury Environs Roman Project was set up in 1997 to study the Roman rural settlement of the Hampshire downland. It follows a similar programme which focused on Iron Age settlement in the same region (1989B96). The main aims of the programme are to examine the way in which rural settlement developed over time and to explore the effects of romanization on the technology of production. Questions of long-term continuity and ancestral landholding are of central interest. It is also the intention to characterize local Roman-period vernacular architecture.

The approach adopted has been to select sites which promise to provide relevant data and to sample them in contiguous area excavations having first undertaken a thorough geophysical survey. The sites examined include the villa establishments of Houghton Down (1997), Grateley South (1998, 1999), Fullerton (2000, 2001) and Thruxton (2002). It is planned to examine the native settlement of Flint Farm in 2003.