This article discusses the development of the research strategy of the South Netherlands project conducted by the Instituut voor Pre- en Protohistorische Archeologie (IPP) of the University of Amsterdam. Its general objective is the study of long-term transformations in landscape and culture between ca 1000 B.C. and 1200 A.D. in the flat sandy region of the southern Netherlands and the adjacent part of northern Belgium. This area of ca 100 by 140 km is roughly bordered by the rivers Meuse, Demer and Scheldt (= MDS-region; see figure 1). The project has a history which started in the early 1970s. It evolved out of the ‘Kempenproject’ of the IPP and the Archeologisch Instituut van de Vrije Universiteit (AIVU) at Amsterdam. At present it is a major research programme of the IPP, with each year several large excavations dispersed over the region, but with a concentration in the south-eastern half of the province of North-Brabant (figure 1).