Archaeologists will launch one of the biggest investigations of its kind in Virginia history when they begin to explore thousands of acres on the Middle Peninsula this summer.

The complex of sites promises such a rich potential for discoveries that one archaeologist likens it to a research park.

The thinly settled patchwork of fields and forests abounds with stone tools and other traces left by centuries of Indian inhabitants at places that could be imperiled by a reservoir approved for construction last year.

The area also is home to three modern-day Indian tribes that strongly opposed the reservoir.