A research project financed by the MIUR (1998-2000) was carried out with the participation of eight Research Units of Italian Universities: Bologna (Coordinator: Fiorenzo Facchini), Ferrara (Coordinator: Carlo Peretto), Pisa (Coordinator: Carlo Tozzi), Rome (Coordinator: Pietro Passarello), Milan (Coordinator: Leone Fasani), Turin (Coordinator: Giacomo Giacobini), Bari (Coordinator: Vittorio Delfino Pesce), Siena (Coordinator: Arturo Palma di Cesnola). The program, coordinated by Fiorenzo Facchini, dealt with various aspects of prehistoric and palaeobiological research on the human settlement of Italy. It represented an interesting collaboration between research groups involved in the study of specimens from various prehistoric, protohistoric and historic sites in the Italian peninsula, covering a time period from the Lower Pleistocene to the Holocene and deriving from diverse localities and environments from the Alps to the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian coasts. The research was based on new specimens coming from archaeological excavations carried out during the research and on previously discovered specimens.