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36 pages, 29976 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Continuity, Resilience, and Change in Rural Settlement Patterns from the Roman to Islamic Period in the Sicani Mountains (Central-Western Sicily)

by Angelo Castrorao Barba, Carla Aleo Nero, Giuseppina Battaglia, Luca Zambito, Ludovica Virga, Alessandra Messina, Marco Cangemi and Giuseppe Bazan

Land 2024, 13(3), 400; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13030400 - 21 Mar 2024

Viewed by 1406

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the dynamics of change in settlement models from the Roman, late antique, and Byzantine periods, focusing on how these transformations influenced the formation of Islamic societies in the rural landscapes of western Sicily. The study is centered around [...] Read more.

This study aims to analyze the dynamics of change in settlement models from the Roman, late antique, and Byzantine periods, focusing on how these transformations influenced the formation of Islamic societies in the rural landscapes of western Sicily. The study is centered around the territory of Corleone in the Sicani Mountains (central-western Sicily). This region, strategically located between the significant cities of Palermo on the Tyrrhenian Sea and Agrigento on the Strait of Sicily, has been pivotal in the communication network spanning from the Roman era to the Middle Ages and beyond. The area has been subject to extensive surveys and excavations, revealing diverse dynamics of continuity, resilience, and innovation in settlement patterns from the Roman to the Islamic periods. Beyond presenting the results of archaeological fieldwork, this study employs GIS-based spatial and statistical analyses and utilizes a range of topographic (elevation, slope, aspect, topographic position index (TPI), and distance to water sources) and ecological factors (vegetation series). These analyses aim to assess the evolving relationships and site positioning within the territory over time. Combining archaeological data with topographic and ecological landscape analysis, this integrated approach elucidates the complex transition dynamics from the Roman settlement system to the Islamic age’s landscape formation in western Sicily’s rural areas. The study thereby contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between historical developments and environmental factors in shaping rural settlement patterns. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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15 pages, 2887 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Is Historical Cartography a Useful Tool for Landscape Analysis? A Perspective from Inland Spain (Zorita de los Canes, Guadalajara) from the Middle Ages to the Present

by Pilar Diarte-Blasco and Manuel Castro-Priego

Land 2023, 12(8), 1627; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12081627 - 18 Aug 2023

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Abstract

Historical cartography continues to be an essential resource in developing strategies for the analysis of anthropised landscapes. In recent years, the digitisation and conversion of a large number of pre-20th-century maps to modern geographic coordinate systems and data hierarchisation in GIS-integrated databases have [...] Read more.

Historical cartography continues to be an essential resource in developing strategies for the analysis of anthropised landscapes. In recent years, the digitisation and conversion of a large number of pre-20th-century maps to modern geographic coordinate systems and data hierarchisation in GIS-integrated databases have opened up huge possibilities. In this paper, we highlight some of the advantages and issues that we observed in using historical cartography in the Iberian Peninsula heartlands by comparing archaeological data, textual sources and maps and various levels of information obtained for our area of study: the southeast of the present-day province of Guadalajara, Spain. Using the longue durée approach conceptualised by Fernand Braudel (1976), historical cartography enabled us to delve deeper into two essential aspects, land use and the road network, while providing elements of diachrony that suggest changes in the landscape in specific and disruptive periods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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30 pages, 17351 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Adaptive Dynamics of Settlement Models in the Urban Landscape of Termez (Uzbekistan) from c. 300 BCE to c. 1400 CE

by Enrique Ariño, Paula Uribe, Jorge Angás, Raquel Piqué, Rodrigo Portero, Verónica Martínez-Ferreras and Josep M. Gurt

Land 2023, 12(8), 1550; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12081550 - 04 Aug 2023

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Abstract

The archaeological site of Ancient Termez is located in southern Uzbekistan. Despite the arid environment, the city benefited from its strategic position near two rivers, the Amu Darya and the Surkhan Darya. Its significance was mainly related to the expansion of trade routes [...] Read more.

The archaeological site of Ancient Termez is located in southern Uzbekistan. Despite the arid environment, the city benefited from its strategic position near two rivers, the Amu Darya and the Surkhan Darya. Its significance was mainly related to the expansion of trade routes connecting Eurasia. The city comprises several enclosures that attest long-term human-environment interactions. In order to identify the adaptive dynamics of the settlement models during an extended chronology covering the period from c. 300 BCE to c. 1220 CE (Greco-Bactrian/Yuezhi, Kushan, Kushano-Sasanian, and Islamic periods), a multidisciplinary study has been carried out, which includes: (1) archaeological excavations in several areas of the urban complex; (2) pedestrian surveying inside some enclosures and in the urban periphery; (3) an aerial survey based on high-resolution satellite imagery; (4) AMS dating of charcoal and bone samples; (5) archaeobotanical investigation through anthracological analysis; (6) zooarchaeological studies. The results point to variations in the development of the inhabited spaces, in which abandonment and occupation took place. The zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical data demonstrate the exploitation of natural resources in different environments (i.e., arid areas and irrigated land) and a certain evolution during the period considered. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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35 pages, 20713 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Water as a Problem and a Solution in Arid Landscapes: Resilient Practices and Adapted Land Use in the Eastern Marmarica (NW-Egypt) between the 2nd Millennium BCE and the 1st Millennium CE

by Anna-Katharina Rieger

Land 2023, 12(5), 1109; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12051109 - 22 May 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3015

Abstract

Arid environments are suitable for researching the resilience of landscapes, since their ecological conditions pose continuous water stress to plants, animals, and humans living there. It is not only water, but also soil that is a limited resource. The arid landscape of the [...] Read more.

Arid environments are suitable for researching the resilience of landscapes, since their ecological conditions pose continuous water stress to plants, animals, and humans living there. It is not only water, but also soil that is a limited resource. The arid landscape of the Eastern Marmarica (NW-Egypt) serves as an example for studying the resilience in and of a past landscape and its inhabitants from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 1st millennium CE, which is conceptualised as a ‘social arid landscape’. The adapted life strategies and resilient practices to make a living in the arid environment are reconstructed from (geo-) archaeological evidence, discussing the applicability of the concept of resilience for ancient (landscape) studies. Resilience is an etic concept, depending on the perspective on and scale of a system. With the categories of ‘event’, ‘practice’ and ‘knowledge’, however, various scales can be bridged; life strategies can be defined as communities of practice and dichotomies be solved. Niche dwellings in the ancient Marmarica, where exposure to stress was normal, functioned because of an elaborate water management and the mobility of the people living there. The resilience of the arid social landscape is based on mixed life strategies, where only a multi-factored crisis (economic and climatic) or a series of smaller shocks (many dry years) could have destructive impacts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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33 pages, 13175 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Landscape Exploitation and Biotic Resource Management at the Tossal de la Vila Hillfort through the Long Durée

by Marta Pérez-Polo, Joan Negre, Ferran Falomir, Guillem Pérez-Jordà, Sonia de Haro and Gustau Aguilella

Land 2023, 12(5), 1033; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12051033 - 09 May 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1499

Abstract

This paper focuses on the anthropic dynamics of environmental transformation and natural resource management in the specific case of the archaeological site of Tossal de la Vila in Castelló, Spain, a hillfort located at the end of the Eastern Iberian Cordillera. It presents [...] Read more.

This paper focuses on the anthropic dynamics of environmental transformation and natural resource management in the specific case of the archaeological site of Tossal de la Vila in Castelló, Spain, a hillfort located at the end of the Eastern Iberian Cordillera. It presents two phases of occupation determined by multiple radiocarbon dating analyses: the first phase during the late Bronze Age (8th–7th centuries BCE) and the second at the beginning of the al-Andalus period (8th–10th centuries CE). The results of the comparison of the subsistence strategies and the biotic configuration of the natural environment in the same place at two different times have shown us that in the protohistoric period, the diversity of economic activities represented in the archaeobiological record is certainly heterogeneous, while in the al-Andalus period the complexity of these options is reduced to much less significant limits, possibly due to the different functionality of this space in both periods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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22 pages, 47224 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring the Dynamics of Occupation between Resilience and Abandonment in Two Post-Classic Rural Landscapes on the Iberian Peninsula

by Julia Sarabia-Bautista

Land 2023, 12(4), 768; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12040768 - 28 Mar 2023

Viewed by 1176

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comparison of two rural landscapes in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, where the dynamics of occupation have differed since the end of the ancient world in terms of both the degree of resilience of settlements and [...] Read more.

In this paper, we present a comparison of two rural landscapes in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, where the dynamics of occupation have differed since the end of the ancient world in terms of both the degree of resilience of settlements and the land use. Our purpose was to explore the social, political, economic, and environmental factors that could explain why there has been a long-term cross-cultural occupation of some resilient sites and landscapes for almost a millennium, while there have been only very specific temporary occupations in other areas. The first part of this paper describes the archaeological investigations carried out by means of intensive survey methods, geophysics, and some excavations in peripheral and peri-urban spaces. In the second part, we reflect on whether the use of the same methodology in all cases allows us to compare and understand what makes societies sustainable (or not) over time through their archaeological record. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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22 pages, 7376 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Resilience Thinking and Landscape Complexity in the Basentello Valley (BA, MT), c. AD 300–800

by Matthew Munro

Land 2023, 12(3), 651; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12030651 - 10 Mar 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1288

Abstract

Archaeological data for the transformation of late Roman rural landscapes in Southern Italy over the sixth to eighth centuries AD are often meagre. This record often provides little explanatory power in the context of understanding the collapse of Roman political and economic hegemony [...] Read more.

Archaeological data for the transformation of late Roman rural landscapes in Southern Italy over the sixth to eighth centuries AD are often meagre. This record often provides little explanatory power in the context of understanding the collapse of Roman political and economic hegemony and the framework for the regeneration of these relationships in the early medieval countryside. Resilience thinking offers a robust suite of heuristics to help guide both method and theory in understanding the key socio-environmental relationships involved in this transformative process based on limited material evidence. Through insights gained from developing a panarchic perspective of the Basentello landscape between AD 300 and 800, both capacities for and strategies of resilience to landscape-scale shocks and stressors emerge as key patterns in this collapse process. To explain how these patterns emerge, resilience thinking employs narratives from complexity science by framing landscapes as self-organizing complex adaptive systems. It is through appreciating this complexity that archaeologists can revolutionize how we understand landscape-scale transformations, the role of resilience in landscape history and, more broadly, the nature of societal collapse. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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Review

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19 pages, 3119 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

The Anthropocene in the Aspiring UNESCO Global Geopark Schelde Delta Area: Geological History, Human Resilience and Future Landscape Management

by Sjoerd Kluiving and Ronald Waterman

Land 2023, 12(5), 990; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12050990 - 29 Apr 2023

Viewed by 1522

Abstract

In north-western Europe, the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt rivers have created a large river delta over the past 3 million years. Geological phenomena in the Scheldt region in north-western Belgium and in the southern Netherlands testify from a highly dynamic landscape, showing a [...] Read more.

In north-western Europe, the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt rivers have created a large river delta over the past 3 million years. Geological phenomena in the Scheldt region in north-western Belgium and in the southern Netherlands testify from a highly dynamic landscape, showing a range from very old (50 MY) to very young (recent) geological processes. The great diversity in geological processes and resulting landscapes is unprecedented on a global scale and has had its impact on the region’s cultural and economic history, shaping today’s reality in the global polycrisis. However, the area is usually observed by people as a flat and featureless type of terrain, although sometimes, unexpected elevation differences and sharp contrasts in landscapes occur alternating with omnipresent waterways. Therefore, here, the seven most conspicuous landforms are reviewed and presented in conjunction with the geological history of the area, including the typical lowland theme of the human battle against water. This study aims to (a) reconstruct the Tertiary and Quaternary to Holocene Dutch–Flemish Schelde Delta history, (b) review a cultural history that evolves into the present of the Anthropocene, and (c) project the desired future for sustainable landscapes in the aspiring UNESCO Global Geopark Schelde Delta between plural landscape management scenarios of Revitalised Land- and Waterscape and Improved Biodiversity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience in Historical Landscapes)

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