The project focuses on the transformations of the Roman province of Dalmatia between 400 and 1000. This was a period of radical change for the different areas of this region. The considered time-frame offers the possibility to study the waning of the Roman rule, the first attestation of the Slav identity in Dalmatia, the struggle of Franks and Byzantium in the region and the crystallization of a new society in the 10th c. when powerful elites, like the Croatians and later the Venetians, shared control of the territory. While the major Adriatic towns showed strong links with the Eastern Mediterranean and Byzantium, other coastal and inland territories witnessed the formation of new political entities named after ethnic groups like Croatia, Narentania or Serbia. These are the years when the name Dalmatia began to signify only the Adriatic shores and islands, as in the case of today: a semantic-turn reflecting broader changes that will be investigated in this proposal. These changes have been traditionally explained with the pattern of migration, destruction and resistance. The proposed research will challenge this view. In order do this five main lines of research are planned: (1) The Territorial transformations of the province and their background. (2) Urban discontinuity and destruction myths (How the decline of roman cities and the rise of the medieval ones were explained by medieval chronicles ). (3) De-Romanization and the rise of new elites. (4) Constantine Porphyrogenitus and the construction of the Dalmatian ethnography (an analysis of the chapters 28/9-36 of the De administrando imperio). (5) Christianization. Focal aspects of the proposal will be the transformation of political structures and formation of identities, instead of the paradigm of population-change. It is essential to frame these aspects in the debate on the Transformation of the Roman World. Moreover Dalmatia will be discussed within the nascent debate on the Transformation of the Carolingian Word which has one of his centers in Vienna. The discourse of identities and political structures will be contextualized in the role of communication, both by land and sea. The broader history of Europe and the Mediterranean will be recalled and neighbouring regions will be used for comparison. The aim of this research is to enhance the role of Dalmatia within the current historical debates..