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(Re)Constructing the Archaeology of Mobile Pastoralism: bringing the site level into long-term pastoral narratives

Project description

Innovative methodology to investigate the archaeology of pastoralism

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recently endorsed pastoralism as a strategy for food security in drylands. While modern pastoral systems are a legacy of Holocene animal domestication, the lack of a methodology for sites with ephemeral evidence limits our understanding of ancient pastoralism. Funded by the European Research Council, the CAMP project will explore long-term pastoral dynamics in arid lands through innovative methodology. It will collect anthropological markers for pastoral activities from ethnographic settlements to create models for interpreting archaeological evidence. The project aims to advance research in the archaeology of pastoralism, anthropic activity markers and the use of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) in archaeology. CAMP will provide a methodology for comprehending past human adaptation to drylands and designing sustainable development strategies for pastoral futures.

Objective

CAMP investigates long-term pastoral dynamics in drylands, by developing an innovative and reliable methodology to study archaeological pastoral sites. Pastoralism has been recently endorsed by the FAO as a successful strategy to achieve food security by efficiently exploiting the inherent variability in natural resources. Modern pastoral systems represent the legacy of animal domestication processes that started before the beginning of the Holocene. However, our understanding of ancient pastoralism is hampered by the lack of a proper methodology that can overcome the ephemeral evidence that characterize pastoral sites. CAMP will pave the way, through methodological innovation, to a more thorough investigation of past adaptation to dryland environments. Highly controlled data on the anthropic markers for pastoral activities (chemical multi-element by portable X-Ray Fluorescence, phytoliths, organic residues and isotopes) will be collected in pastoral ethnographic settlements and analyzed to create models that will then be used to interpret the archaeological evidence. CAMP will advance research in: (a) methods and theory in the archaeology of pastoralism; (b) anthropic activity markers and the use of pXRF in archaeology; and (c) adaptive strategies in drylands. This project is a unique opportunity to strengthen the study of pastoralism by providing a widely applicable methodology that can augment our knowledge on past human adaptation to drylands and inform the design of sustainable and historically-grounded development strategies for pastoral futures. CAMP methodology will be potentially exportable to other archaeological sites, independently of their chronology, cultural or geographic context, representing an invaluable advance to archaeological methods at large.

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2022-COG

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Host institution

UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 928 226,00
Address
PLACA DE LA MERCE, 10-12
08002 Barcelona
Spain

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Region
Este Cataluña Barcelona
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 928 226,50

Beneficiaries (2)

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