The main hypothesis of the project was tested by applying the theoretical background and research strategies of the Archaeology of Environmental Resources and Archaeology of Architecture, joined through the perspective of Social Archaeology. Thus, INPACT carried out an interdisciplinary analysis which took as its case study the village of Casaio, Galicia (NW Spain), located in a mountainous region called Serra do Eixe. There, three specific areas were studied in order to understand the historical process of industrialization and the impact it had both for local communities and landscapes: Casaio’s common lands; three different tungsten mines; and a deserted neighbourhood called Rumiña. The project comprised different five research phases, which were:
1) Documentary analysis: which provided with a good number of documents with information of the social and economic background of Casaio during the 18th-20th centuries.
2) Extra-site and intra-site fieldwork: INPACT’s team conducted up to five different fieldwork campaigns, including one extensive survey; two archaeological excavation campaigns; and two archaeobotanical sampling campaigns aiming at collection environmental data.
3) Ethnographic reconstruction: it was based on the analysis of thirty-three interviews that have already been conducted, which were expanded to four additional semi-structured interviews.
4) Laboratory analysis: the laboratory analysis focused on dendrological, anthracological and pollen analysis, which gave a lot of information of the environmental conditions prior and after the industrialization processes.
5) Data processing and interpretation: all the information was processed through different digital and the analysis of the material culture recovered during fieldwork was performed.
In a nutshell, the most important results included the deep characterisation of local communities in northwestern Iberia before the process of industrialization, while building a complex understanding of the management of resources through the common lands. After the project, we were able to construct a very specific local history of the process of modernity in Casaio between mid 19th to 21st centuries divided in five different phases, which serve as a model for other territories in Western Europe. Moreover, the characterisation of the material impact of industrialization both in society and the landscapes gives potential insights on the question of sustainability in rural areas.
All these results were disseminated through open lectures, a photographic and artistic exhibition, the co-creation of a local museum and the heritage protection of the archaeological sites.
