The Montale Terramare open-air archaeological park is one of the few of its kind in Italy. With almost a century of tradition behind them, open-air archaeological museums developed first in Germany, Scandinavia and other nations of Anglo-Saxon origin. Today, they offer an exciting interface between scientific research and education, bridging the gap between academe and the public.
By reconstructing the environments and activities of the past in a striking, evocative way, they manage to convey to a wider audience the results of excavation and research.
The Montale Park has been part of the European network from its inception and has been working in synergy with leading open-air museums throughout the continent for years. It is an active member of EXARC, the European organisation that brings together open-air Archaeological Parks and Museums in a shared commitment to developing the quality of scientific research and its dissemination.

The Archaeolive Project

The Archaeological Park at Montale was set up in the ambit of a much wider project supported by the European Commission’s Raffaello Project, which for a four-year period from 1999 saw the Modena Civic Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology working side-by-side with Vienna’s Natural History Museum, the site of the Hallstatt salt mines and the Unteruhldingen pile-dwelling Museum, on Lake Constance.
The project, which is called Archaeolive, has combined the experience and research of three archaeological parks working in the field of European proto-history in a shared mission to give due attention to the Bronze Age as a period of cultural unity throughout the continent.

The liveARCH project

From 2007 to 2009, the Park of Montale was the Italian partner of the European project liveARCH, an international network of cooperation between 8 Archaeological Open Air Museums of Europe. Aim of the network was to promote the knowledge and awareness about our ancient history through reconstructions of buildings and activities of the past, on the base of the archaeological evidences.
liveARCH partners were: Eindhoven (Holland), Unteruhldingen (Germany), Szazhalombatta (Hungary), Bostad (Lofoten Islands - Norway), Kenmore (Scotland), Riga (Latvia), Hollviken (Sweden), and the Park of Montale. The eight partners present reconstructions which range from the Neolithic period (dwellings of the Constance lake in Germany) to the Medieval time (Viking villages in Sweden and Norway).
In the frame of liveARCH, the Archaeological Ethnological Museum of Modena organized the First Forum of Archaeological Open Air Museums in Europe (Modena, 25th-29th march 2009) and presented the first Guide to the Archaeological Open Air Museums in Europe connected with a film.