Search results for "landscape history"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
Last tesserae of a fading mosaic: floristic census and forest vegetation survey at Parche di Bilello (south-western Sicily, Italy), a site needing ur…
2021
This paper illustrates the botanic heritage of Parche di Bilello, a site located in the municipality of Castelvetrano. The study area hosts several woodland fragments dominated by Olea europaea var. sylvestris, Quercus suber and Quercus ilex, respectively. According to historical data, these nuclei represent the last remnants of an open forestland which covered a much wider coastal area between Mazara del Vallo and Sciacca until the end of Middle Age. Phytosociological relevés were focused on these forest nuclei, probably the most representative of south-western Sicily, which correspond to three habitats included in the 92/43 EEC Directive (9320, 9330 and 9340, respectively) and represent t…
The Rise and Fall of the Aizjomi Landscape†
2012
Jurmalciems, an ancient fishing-farming village on the Baltic Sea coast in southwestern Latvia, provides the setting for this article. In this setting I focus on the notion of dwelling in a landscape that comes to reflect the residents' lifeworld. The holistic notion of "dwelling" incorporates the complex and multiple dimensions of human life spent in the physical landscape, where time and space, nature and culture, are bound together and where local and macrolevel historical and social circumstances determine them both. This study is my attempt to understand a visible reality: the aizjonii landscape that is etched into the topography in the form of fields carved and embosomed into sandbank…
Late Pleistocene and Holocene landscape history of the central Palatinate forest (Pfälzerwald, south-western Germany)
2010
Abstract Field studies on the Late Pleistocene and Holocene landscape history were conducted in the central Palatinate Forest ( Pfalzerwald , Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany) near the village of Johanniskreuz. The structure and composition of periglacial cover beds, the young floodplain sediments of the Aschbach, Schwarzbach und Moosalbe valleys, and the sediment structure in some dry valleys, of alluvial fans and slope colluvia, were studied. The sandy cover beds are less than 10% aeolian, and in all cases only the main and basal layer are present, with no evidence of the intermediate layer. In general, the cover beds resemble those of other parts of the Central German Uplands ( Mittelgebirg…
The Traditional Mediterranean Polycultural Landscape as Cultural Heritage: Its Origin and Historical Importance, Its Agro-Silvo-Pastoral Complexity a…
2016
Today, the Mediterranean is characterized by landscape patterns whose compositions result from countless, long and complex cultural and historical processes. However, the pressure on these landscapes and their rapid transformation into more modern forms call out for a better knowledge of the more complex forms of traditional land use and relative landscapes. In this context, an identification and clarification of the role of such mixed and complex forms of agro-forestry systems and landscapes, named “giardino Mediterraneo” (“Mediterranean garden”) is necessary. This term is often applied to and associated with numerous different agricultural and agro-forestry systems as well as to numerous …
Neolithic rock art in context: Landscape history and the transition to agriculture in Mediterranean Spain
2008
Rock art is one of the most salient features of Neolithic societies in eastern Spain and an explicit form of landscape history. This paper summarizes current debates of Mediterranean rock art chronology and interpretation and explores the contextual differences in two areas of Neolithic settlement with rock art: the Canyoles Valley (Valencia) and the Alcoi Basin (Alicante). Large-scale survey of the Canyoles Valley resulted in a clearer understanding of agricultural land use during the Neolithic that contrasts with evidence from the Alcoi Basin. By analyzing Neolithic rock art in its archaeological context, we discuss the significance and limitations of rock art analysis for understanding a…
Historical Ecology, Archaeology and Biocultural Landscapes: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to the Long Anthropocene
2022
From the local to the global scale, human impact is the real protagonist of the Anthro- pocene. It is impossible to understand ecosystems and the landscape without considering the long-term processes of anthropic activities. The driving forces in landscape change are strongly related to historical dynamics. Changes in political regimes, social structures, eco- nomic modes of production, cultural and religious influences—which all traditionally fall within the domain of the humanities—are phenomena entangled with many ecological and environmental factors. Thus, understanding landscapes in the Anthropocene is impossible without a cross-disciplinary approach.