more than twenty-five years ago, John Cherry looked forward to the day when  archaeological survey projects working around the Mediterranean  region (the 'Frogs round the pond') would begin to compare and  synthesize the information they had collected. He anticipated  researchers tackling big questions of inter-regional scope in new  and interesting ways, working at a geographical scale  considerably larger than that of the individual survey. Was his  optimism misplaced? Despite the extraordinary growth of interest  in field survey projects and regional analysis, and despite the  developments in survey methodology that have been discussed and  implemented in the past two decades, few scholars have attempted  to use survey data in a comparative mode and to answer the  broad-scale questions confronting social historians. In this  volume, which is the outcome of an advanced Workshop held at the  University of Michigan in 2002, a number of prominent  archaeologists return to the question of comparability. They  discuss the potential benefits of working in a comparative  format, with evidence from many different Mediterranean survey  projects, and consider the practical problems that present  roadblocks to achieving that objective. From mapping and manuring  to human settlement and demography, environment and culture, each  addresses different questions, often with quite different  approaches; together they offer a range of perspectives on how to  put surveys "side-by-side". Contributors include Susan E Alcock,  John Cherry, Jack L Davis, Peter Attema, Martijn van Leusen,  James C Wright, Robin Osborne, David Mattingly, T J Wilkinson,  and Richard E Blanton.