Theme:
2. Net Zero Archaeologies – Sustainability in the Past, Present and Future
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Long-term Dynamics of Field Patterns and Land Use
Content:
Agrarian parcels are a fundamental and age-old dimension of rural areas. Studying them allows us to: (i) understand the spatial and temporal variability of land use in rural areas according to the specificities of geographical environments and to social needs; (ii) extend the notion of heritage to the agrarian structures still visible in the European countryside; (iii) demonstrate that they constitute a useful research object for thinking about the sustainability of current development projects in rural areas.
However, studying field boundaries – which are still in use, but also abandoned and fossilised - is not exactly the same as studying a normal archaeological structure or site. For example, in 2008 UNESCO classified a Greek ‘centuriation’ on the island of Hvar (Croatia) as a World Heritage Site, on the basis that it had remained ‘practically intact’ since the fourth century BC, testifying to the ‘permanence’ and ‘durability’ of land use systems and land tenure rules. While this desire to protect this heritage is legitimate, the argument nevertheless bears witness to a fixed conception of plot forms, which ignores the weight of time, passing off as fossil and authentic (ancient Greek) what is in fact the result of more than two thousand years of adaptation by the different societies living on this island.
Archaeological and archaeogeographical studies of landscapes, on the other hand, make it possible to better evaluate the role of time and societies in the transmission of agrarian plots since the Bronze Age. Such research has shown that agrarian land parcels evolve over time in complex ways that combine the creation and reuse of inherited social and geographical forms.
The aims of this session are two fold i) to present archaeological studies on the theme of rural landscapes in order to shed light on the transformations and transmissions that affect the evolution of landscape forms in different European contexts in the long term and ii) to discuss the most suitable methods for reconstruction of individual field plot use histories.
Keywords:
Landscape, Field patterns, Agrarian history, Archaeogeography
Session associated with MERC:
yes
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Magali Watteaux (France) 1,2
Co-organisers:
Sam Turner (United Kingdom) 3,4
Carlo Citter (Italy) 5
Maria Hajnalova (Slovakia) 6
Affiliations:
1. University Rennes 2
2. Research Unity
3. Newcastle University
4. Centre for Landscape
5. University of Siena
6. Department of archaeology, Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra
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