The Amuq valley is located in the most southern state of Turkey, Hatay. Situated at a crucial junction between Cilicia and the Mediterranean coast on the west, Syria to the south, the Anatolian plateau to the north, and the Syro-Mesopotamian regions to the east, the Amuq offers researchers an unusual opportunity to study a number of key themes about transformations of regional and interregional relationships. The valley lies in part within a hitherto fairly well studied region of the upper Orontes (Asi) River and the former Lake Antioch (Amik Gölü), tucked in the bend of the northeastern Mediterranean Sea. Measuring 535 square kilometers (330 square miles), the Amuq Valley (variously, the plain of Antioch, modern Antakya) is defined here as culturally a part of the northern Levant and the southern fringes of Anatolia.

From 1932 to 1938, Robert Braidwood conducted path-breaking archaeological surveys of the Amuq on behalf of the Oriental Institute. 178 sites were documented and the sites of Chatal Höyük (AS 167), Tell al-Judaidah (AS 176), Tell Ta'yinat (AS 126) Tulail al-Sharqi (AS 135), Tell Ta'yinat al-Saghir (AS 127), Tell Kurcoglu (AS 55) and a cave (Vadi-el Hamam) were excavated. Since some prehistoric periods were not well represented in these excavations, trenches were put into Tells Dhahab (AS 177) and Kurdu (AS 94) during the final year (1938) in order to complete the sequence. Woolley initiated excavations at Atchana (Alalakh [AS 136]), Tabarat al-Akrad (AS 137), Tell esh-Sheikh (AS 135) and he conducted soundings in a variety of different Amuq sites in 1936 but these remain unpublished.He excavated (Uzunarab-Boz Huyuk AS 84), twin mounds Tulul Salihhiye (AS 128), and Tell Salihhiye (AS 129) between 1936 and 1949. The pottery, architecture, texts, and other artifacts excavated at these sites provide one of the longest and most reliable chronological sequences of stratified cultural material in the entire Near East.

From its reactivation in 1995 the current Amuq Valley Regional Projects represent a series of coordinated field projects including both regional survey and excavation. The initial stage of the research strategy focused on contextualizing the settlements by survey, followed by site-specific investigations prior to the resumption of new excavations. This rich corpus of human settlement data dating from roughly 6000 BC to today has recently been published in 2005. Although the best known site is that of Roman Antioch on the Orontes, a total of 346 sites have been researched to date and have yielded copious environmental data. During the first stages of the investigations Tony J. Wilkinson acted as the field director of the archaeological and geoarchaeological survey that yielded a rich corpus of human settlement data. He was followed by Fokke Gerritsen in 2004. In 2006, the surveys, directed by Aslihan Yener, continue on behalf of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Mustafa Kemal University in Antakya.

In the last 10 years, three new archaeological excavations have been initiated in the Amuq Valley at Tells Kurdu, Atchana and Ta'yinat. With its own unique characteristics and time frame, each of the three sites represents a major urban center in the plain.