Search results for "Cultural landscape"
showing 10 items of 48 documents
Spatial and Temporal Diversity During the Neolithic Spread in the Western Mediterranean: The First Pottery Productions
2017
Actual research into the neolithization process and the development of farming communities in the Western Mediterranean reveals a diverse and complex cultural landscape. Dispersal routes and rhythm of diffusion of the agro-pastoral economy, Mesolithic inheritance, regional interactions between communities, and functional adaptations all have to be explored to trace how Mediterranean societies were reshaped during this period. The different pottery traditions that accompany the Neolithic spread and its economic development are of course interconnected (the “impressed ware”), but they also show some degree of polymorphism. This variability has been variously interpreted, but rarely quantified…
Multi-criterial approaches for the inventory and the evaluation of traditional cultural landscapes
2008
The Mediterranean environment is characterized by an high variability in ecological features and by a rich biodiversity, whose interaction has generated complex agro-forestry systems. The resulting cultural landscapes can represent a remarkable trait of Italian landscape. Nonetheless, since several decades they are at risk mainly owing to the consequences of cultural intensification, that has turn out in new cultural models, i.e. specialized high density agronomic plantation, or in a progressive abandonment of agricultural land. In order to prevent the degradation or loos of these particular ecosystems, it becomes a priority to adopt measures for their preservation and promotion. Regardless…
How Universal Is the Relationship between Remotely Sensed Vegetation Indices and Crop Leaf Area Index? A Global Assessment
2016
This study aims to assess the relationship between Leaf Area Index (LAI) and remotely sensed Vegetation Indices (VIs) for major crops, based on a globally explicit dataset of in situ LAI measurements over a significant set of locations. We used a total of 1394 LAI measurements from 29 sites spanning 4 continents and covering 15 crop types with corresponding Landsat satellite images. Best-fit functions for the LAI-VI relationships were generated and assessed in terms of crop type, vegetation index, level of radiometric/atmospheric processing, method of LAI measurement, as well as the time difference between LAI measurements and satellite overpass. These global LAI-VI relationships were evalu…
Literature as a representation of changes in urban landscapes after 1945 (on Polish, Czech and Slovak examples)
2018
The paper focuses on changes of urban and cultural landscapes after 1945 under the communist regime in a way that they were presented in Polish, Czech and Slovak literature published after 1989 (when a climate for talking about politically uncomfortable topics has changed). The main subject of the author‟s interest is how surrounding landscape influences people‟s behaviour demonstrated in literary pieces. The destruction caused during the WWII in Polish (former German) towns like Gdańsk, Szczecin or Wrocław and decision of contemporary authorities not to restore anything for many decades forced citizens to live in increasingly decaying surroundings. In Czechoslovakia, due to expulsion of Ge…
Soils, Past Landscapes and Cultural Heritage: Phytoliths as Indicators of Ancient Crops
2016
Soils, Past Landscapes and Cultural Heritage: Phytoliths as Indicators of Ancient Crops
The role of traditional Erica arborea L. management practices in maintaining northeastern Sicily’s cultural landscape
2007
The tree heath (Erica arborea L.), a small evergreen tree found in the Mediterranean region and parts of Eastern and Central Africa, produces lignotubers that are highly valued for making smoking pipes. The Peloritani Mountains of northeastern Sicily are historically one of the most important areas in Italy for the production of these high quality lignotubers, known as briar root wood. In the past, tree heath shrublands were also an important source of charcoal. Erica arborea utilisation has declined dramatically during the past century, mostly due to the decreasing demand for smoking pipes, as well as the increasing frequency of wildfires and large-scale afforestation activities in this re…
Il design nelle produzioni in pietra lavica dell’Etna. Processi naturali, artificiali, culturali
2018
Il testo indaga il progetto di elementi e oggetti in pietra lavica, che declina il carattere di “preziosità” di un materiale connotato da una forte identità territoriale e versatilità nell’uso. In particolare, di alcune produzioni in lava si vuole esplorare la capacità comunicativa ed evocativa rispetto al “paesaggio culturale” del Monte Etna, indicato dall’UNESCO come “uno dei più attivi vulcani iconici del mondo e uno straordinario esempio di processi geologici continui ”. Si analizzeranno alcune sperimentazioni che, pur esprimendo declinazioni del design diverse per modalità di produzione e fruizione condividono l’attenta considerazione degli originari processi di formazione del material…
Climate Aridity and the Geographical Shift of Olive Trees in a Mediterranean Northern Region
2021
Climate change leverages landscape transformations and exerts variable pressure on natural environments and rural systems. Earlier studies outlined how Mediterranean Europe has become a global hotspot of climate warming and land use change. The present work assumes the olive tree, a typical Mediterranean crop, as a candidate bioclimatic indicator, delineating the latent impact of climate aridity on traditional cropping systems at the northern range of the biogeographical distribution of the olive tree. Since the olive tree follows a well-defined latitude gradient with a progressive decline in both frequency and density moving toward the north, we considered Italy as an appropriate case to i…
The Uprooting in the Narrative Language of Foreign Land by Jonathan Raban
2022
The language and narrative style of Jonathan Raban, a contemporary English writer author of the novel Foreign Land (1985), seem to find in the themes of uprooting and self-searching a metaphorical and existential interpretation that in the search for identity alternates the desire to return to the origins, recovering lost affections and beloved places, with the attraction to the unknown. In this oscillation, masterfully rendered by the metaphorical and figurative language of the novel, Raban tells the awareness that the return to the origins is not always a point of arrival but a further turning point in life. The article focuses on some particularly effective linguistic and semantic aspect…