Marco Masseti has specialised in the study of the relationships that have developed between man and vertebrates over the course of human civilisation in the Mediterranean basin and the Near East. As a zoologist and palaeoecologist, he taught for many years in the Department of Biology of the University of Florence (Italy), where he continues to carry out his research. He is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Deer Specialist Group (Gland, Switzerland) and fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He is author of more than 200 scientific papers in international scientific magazines, nine autograph books (in Italian, English and Greek), and has co–authored or edited several other books.