Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ANTIGONE (Archaeology of shariNg pracTIces: the material evidence of mountain marGinalisatiON in Europe (18th- 21st c. AD))
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-11-01 do 2025-04-30
European mountain areas represent forty per cent of the European landmass and nineteen per cent of the European population lives in them (EU Mountain Areas Report 2004). During the last two centuries, the abandonment of mountain areas, as well as their political marginalisation, has had strong environmental and social consequences. Addressing these consequences is a priority for national and European governments (EU Mountain Areas Report 2016). In the Mediterranean, the loss of mountain cultural and natural heritage due to the abandonment of rural activities, and resulting hydrogeological instability and (wild)fires, makes it urgent to address the question of the historical dynamics of this loss, with the aim of understanding effectively the mechanisms underlying the process of marginalisation and of providing new tools for planning a sustainable future and a revitalised role for local communities.
ANTIGONE explores crucial aspects of this process that have previously not been considered: changes in the social practices of environmental resource management (relating to pastures, meadows, grass, woodlands, water etc.), from the beginnings of this marginalisation process tied to the pressure for a “rationalised” management of resources promoted by 18th c. physiographic theories and 19th c. liberal ideology until the present. Practices result from the dialectics between individuals, communities, and central States and how they shape and change the landscape (Stagno et al. 2018).
ANTIGONE uses archaeological methods to study and uncover the shared management practices that characterized European mountains until at least the 19th century. Medieval and modern historiography has extensively studied the practices of managing commons, analysing them primarily through three main categories: materiality, jurisdiction and possession. However, the interconnection between these three aspects of common resource management has not yet been explained, and there is a lack of basic understanding of the mechanisms that allowed commons to persist over time.
The ANTIGONE project sets out to demonstrate the direct connection between the disappearance of certain shared practices for the management of natural resources and the process of abandonment has affected European mountains from the 18th century to the present day. ANTIGONE aims at verifying the hypothesis that some alleged improvements in agro-forestry-pastoral practices (e.g. the underground conduction of water channels), far from advancing the development of mountain areas, in many cases, contributed to the abandonment of rural activities and depopulation.
In doing so, ANTIGONE is carrying out micro-historical enquiries in four main study areas: the French Pyrenees, the Ligurian Apennines, the Spanish Sierra Nevada, Asturias and the Basque Country. Within each of these geographical macro-contexts, ANTIGONE identifies a series of case studies related to specific local communities that allow for a deep understanding of the aforementioned mechanisms. The scale of observation adopted is highly local: ANTIGONE intends to observe phenomena of general significance by breaking them down into much smaller parts, thereby examining local communities through the lens of a microscope. This specific approach allows, among other things, an understanding of why the phenomenon of abandonment operates differently in different contexts, not only at the level of macro-geographical regions but also within the same local communities.
In the case studies, ANTIGONE employs techniques provided by archaeology, archaeobotany, palynology, and dendrochronology to identify the presence of shared management practices of commons in various European mountain contexts. At the same time, the project integrates research on historical archival documentation, as well aswith interviews and (over the next years) work with local communities. Historical documentation helps to identify and understand the fundamental role of jurisdictional conflicts on access rights to environmental resources, as tools to understand social dynamics underlying the use of resources. For this reason, ANTIGONE focuses particularly on the analysis of conflicts surrounding resources, assuming that conflicts represent the way in which social actors, through their interactions, promote a sustainable and collective maintenance of natural resources.
Through this micro-historical approach, ANTIGONE aims to achieve two primary objectives:
- to acquire new knowledge on the processes of marginalisation and abandonment of European mountains, particularly regarding the specific political, economic, and social mechanisms that have led to these outcomes.
- to establish a new interdisciplinary research methodology centred around and guided by archaeological investigation. This interdisciplinary approach involves the close interaction of archaeological evidence, documentary exploration of jurisdictional practices and possession, and investigation and the work with local communities. The latter especially entails a close dialogue and a close collaboration with local communities.
ANTIGONE aims at building a bridge between local communities and the access to policy tools that enable a better management of their resources, avoiding their heritagisation. ANTIGONE seeks to amplify the voices of local communities, helping them to be acknowledged as key players in the dynamics concerning the management and survival of mountain areas and striving to prevent their political marginalisation, or their transformation just in heritage “monuments”, without a social dimension.
ANTIGONE explores crucial aspects of this process that have previously not been considered: changes in the social practices of environmental resource management (relating to pastures, meadows, grass, woodlands, water etc.), from the beginnings of this marginalisation process tied to the pressure for a “rationalised” management of resources promoted by 18th c. physiographic theories and 19th c. liberal ideology until the present. Practices result from the dialectics between individuals, communities, and central States and how they shape and change the landscape (Stagno et al. 2018).
ANTIGONE uses archaeological methods to study and uncover the shared management practices that characterized European mountains until at least the 19th century. Medieval and modern historiography has extensively studied the practices of managing commons, analysing them primarily through three main categories: materiality, jurisdiction and possession. However, the interconnection between these three aspects of common resource management has not yet been explained, and there is a lack of basic understanding of the mechanisms that allowed commons to persist over time.
The ANTIGONE project sets out to demonstrate the direct connection between the disappearance of certain shared practices for the management of natural resources and the process of abandonment has affected European mountains from the 18th century to the present day. ANTIGONE aims at verifying the hypothesis that some alleged improvements in agro-forestry-pastoral practices (e.g. the underground conduction of water channels), far from advancing the development of mountain areas, in many cases, contributed to the abandonment of rural activities and depopulation.
In doing so, ANTIGONE is carrying out micro-historical enquiries in four main study areas: the French Pyrenees, the Ligurian Apennines, the Spanish Sierra Nevada, Asturias and the Basque Country. Within each of these geographical macro-contexts, ANTIGONE identifies a series of case studies related to specific local communities that allow for a deep understanding of the aforementioned mechanisms. The scale of observation adopted is highly local: ANTIGONE intends to observe phenomena of general significance by breaking them down into much smaller parts, thereby examining local communities through the lens of a microscope. This specific approach allows, among other things, an understanding of why the phenomenon of abandonment operates differently in different contexts, not only at the level of macro-geographical regions but also within the same local communities.
In the case studies, ANTIGONE employs techniques provided by archaeology, archaeobotany, palynology, and dendrochronology to identify the presence of shared management practices of commons in various European mountain contexts. At the same time, the project integrates research on historical archival documentation, as well aswith interviews and (over the next years) work with local communities. Historical documentation helps to identify and understand the fundamental role of jurisdictional conflicts on access rights to environmental resources, as tools to understand social dynamics underlying the use of resources. For this reason, ANTIGONE focuses particularly on the analysis of conflicts surrounding resources, assuming that conflicts represent the way in which social actors, through their interactions, promote a sustainable and collective maintenance of natural resources.
Through this micro-historical approach, ANTIGONE aims to achieve two primary objectives:
- to acquire new knowledge on the processes of marginalisation and abandonment of European mountains, particularly regarding the specific political, economic, and social mechanisms that have led to these outcomes.
- to establish a new interdisciplinary research methodology centred around and guided by archaeological investigation. This interdisciplinary approach involves the close interaction of archaeological evidence, documentary exploration of jurisdictional practices and possession, and investigation and the work with local communities. The latter especially entails a close dialogue and a close collaboration with local communities.
ANTIGONE aims at building a bridge between local communities and the access to policy tools that enable a better management of their resources, avoiding their heritagisation. ANTIGONE seeks to amplify the voices of local communities, helping them to be acknowledged as key players in the dynamics concerning the management and survival of mountain areas and striving to prevent their political marginalisation, or their transformation just in heritage “monuments”, without a social dimension.
During this phase of the project, research focused primarily on investigating the case studies in southwestern Europe. Individual communities and fractions selected within the geographical macro-areas that constitute the four main case studies were selected for in-depth investigations. Archival investigations helped identify interesting case studies in the community of Zalduondo, in the Basque Country. In this case, the interest arose from the documented presence of two collective institutions (Parzoneria de Entzia and Parzoneria General the Gipuzkoa and Álava) in the mountain slopes between Zalduondo and the various fractions of the Salvatierra municipality, through which the management and the access rights to shared resources is regulated.
In Ligurian Apennines, within the municipalities of Rovegno, Fontanigorda, Rezzoaglio and Borzonasca, micro-case studies have been identified also as a consequence of the strong interest of local communities and significant documentary evidence found in local parish archives following the establishment of new institutions for the management of common lands (the "family consortium of Bosco Fontana"). Similarly, Fontanigorda preserves extensive archival collections related to the industrial production of "esca" (fomes fomentarius), a fungus collected from collectively managed woodland areas. In “Montagna di Fascia”, nearby Genoa, the interest focused on the mountain slopes characterised by the presence of so-called seasonal settlements (Colanesi, Orsiggia, Lumarzo, etc.) shared by different communities of the coast and the hinterland. Those structures played a key role in the organisation of agro-sylvo-pastoral practices. Investigations were conducted in the Asturias region in the territories of Ayande, Valle de la Redigada, and Fonteta, to understand how seasonal and permanent settlements were progressively structured and abandoned. Regarding Sierra Nevada, the research focused on collectively managed lands by the communities of Bubión, Pampaneira, Capileira, and Cañar, identified through the analysis of the "Cadastro de Ensenada", and characterised by the presence of extensive and complex irrigation systems, where aqueducts and channels are shared between different communities. In Cerdagne, research is concentrated on the common-lands shared between the municipalities of Saillagouse, Eyne and Llò and is aimed to detect the changes performed in the access rights and in the organisation of agro-sylvo-pastoral systems.
There, archaeological surveys have been devoted to characterising the organisation of the space and identify historical elements of management, through the observation of material evidence of environmental resources management (scattered settlements, terraces, channels, charcoal-kilns, etc), including the observation of the vegetation cover (which allows to identify grazed areas, as well as understand how woodlands and tree management changed through times). In this way, a first relative periodisation of changes in practices has been built. We are now trying to date and go back in time through archaeological test pits and collecting core samples for dendrochronological, palynological and geo-archaeological analyses. All data gathered during the surveys were georeferenced using GPS. Archaeobotanical analyses, including anthracology, palynology, non-pollen palynomorph analysis, phytoliths, dendrochronology, and dendroanthracology, were primarily conducted in numerous wetlands of the eastern Ligurian Apennines and the "Montagna di Fascia," as well as in the sites of Entiza, Zalduondo, and Luzuriaga in the Basque Country. Oral inquiries and interviews were carried out in many of the case studies, thanks to the willingness of elderly individuals encountered during the excavation campaigns described above and allowed to gradually grasp the still existing social complexity below seemingly simple evidence of crops and pastures. Analyses on the collected data are ongoing.
In Ligurian Apennines, within the municipalities of Rovegno, Fontanigorda, Rezzoaglio and Borzonasca, micro-case studies have been identified also as a consequence of the strong interest of local communities and significant documentary evidence found in local parish archives following the establishment of new institutions for the management of common lands (the "family consortium of Bosco Fontana"). Similarly, Fontanigorda preserves extensive archival collections related to the industrial production of "esca" (fomes fomentarius), a fungus collected from collectively managed woodland areas. In “Montagna di Fascia”, nearby Genoa, the interest focused on the mountain slopes characterised by the presence of so-called seasonal settlements (Colanesi, Orsiggia, Lumarzo, etc.) shared by different communities of the coast and the hinterland. Those structures played a key role in the organisation of agro-sylvo-pastoral practices. Investigations were conducted in the Asturias region in the territories of Ayande, Valle de la Redigada, and Fonteta, to understand how seasonal and permanent settlements were progressively structured and abandoned. Regarding Sierra Nevada, the research focused on collectively managed lands by the communities of Bubión, Pampaneira, Capileira, and Cañar, identified through the analysis of the "Cadastro de Ensenada", and characterised by the presence of extensive and complex irrigation systems, where aqueducts and channels are shared between different communities. In Cerdagne, research is concentrated on the common-lands shared between the municipalities of Saillagouse, Eyne and Llò and is aimed to detect the changes performed in the access rights and in the organisation of agro-sylvo-pastoral systems.
There, archaeological surveys have been devoted to characterising the organisation of the space and identify historical elements of management, through the observation of material evidence of environmental resources management (scattered settlements, terraces, channels, charcoal-kilns, etc), including the observation of the vegetation cover (which allows to identify grazed areas, as well as understand how woodlands and tree management changed through times). In this way, a first relative periodisation of changes in practices has been built. We are now trying to date and go back in time through archaeological test pits and collecting core samples for dendrochronological, palynological and geo-archaeological analyses. All data gathered during the surveys were georeferenced using GPS. Archaeobotanical analyses, including anthracology, palynology, non-pollen palynomorph analysis, phytoliths, dendrochronology, and dendroanthracology, were primarily conducted in numerous wetlands of the eastern Ligurian Apennines and the "Montagna di Fascia," as well as in the sites of Entiza, Zalduondo, and Luzuriaga in the Basque Country. Oral inquiries and interviews were carried out in many of the case studies, thanks to the willingness of elderly individuals encountered during the excavation campaigns described above and allowed to gradually grasp the still existing social complexity below seemingly simple evidence of crops and pastures. Analyses on the collected data are ongoing.
ANTIGONE is investigating changes in the practices relating to the management of shared environmental resources (sharing practices). The basic hypothesis is that the disappearance of sharing practices – and, with them, the loss of local naturalistic knowledge – played a key role in the process of abandonment of Southern European mountain areas in the 19th c. and 20th c. (Stagno 2018a). Applying the multidisciplinary approach described above, ANTIGONE intends to verify this hypothesis through the investigation of three connected elements: institutions (main sources: archival documentation about conflicts over commons access rights; statistical enquiries), local social groups (m.s.: arch. doc. on conflicts; ethnography), and practices and their material expressions (m.s.: landscapes and their features through archaeological surveys, present-day vegetation observations, archaeobotanical and geoarchaeological analyses). The interconnections between these elements shaped the ways in which people inhabited rural areas,occupied and appropriated their space. Their combined study is allowing to decipher the effects, which changes in practices had on the social life of rural communities. For example, in Cerdagne, investigations are focused on the transformations following the definition of “Mas” as rational farmhouses at the beginning of the 19th c.), according to agronomic theories aimed to improve productivity. When the investigated “mas” was built, the owners and the farmers interacted with previous rights and organisation, promoting deep changes as in the management and access to water resources. It left important traces that who us us the material dimension of conflicts.
The final aim is the identification of the inner mechanisms which explain why depopulation and abandonment happened differently not just in different areas, but also in different hamlets of the same valley or parish.
Bringing together the past and the present, through a local-scale analysis and with a comparative approach, ANTIGONE is introducing a new multidisciplinary approach, combining the archaeology of environmental resources, with the exploration of the jurisdictional dimension of practices at site scale (archaeology of commons) and, following communitarian archaeology, through an intensive dialogue with present-day local communities. Studying and collaborating with present societies, archaeology can develop a critique of current forms of protection and policies for rural areas, demonstrating the fragility of their heritage and that its conservation depends on the hidden social and historical dimension of the environmental management, thus to the eminently social dimension of the landscape. In this way Antigone will also:
- provide new protocols for comparative analyses, from multidisciplinary and analytical investigations that aim to identify the relationships between environmental resource management practices, local environmental knowledge and population dynamics, focusing on the social dimension of practices, in the past, as well as in the present. This is being achieved through the construction of a relational database management system, which allows to manage and carry out inquiries on data deriving from the analytical investigation of different kind of sources investigated through different disciplinary lens, kept together by the social micro-historical perspective.
- enrich the theoretical approach, preparing the ground for more complex interpretations of archaeological evidence, through a thorough consideration of the social and jurisdictional dimension of practices.
The final aim is the identification of the inner mechanisms which explain why depopulation and abandonment happened differently not just in different areas, but also in different hamlets of the same valley or parish.
Bringing together the past and the present, through a local-scale analysis and with a comparative approach, ANTIGONE is introducing a new multidisciplinary approach, combining the archaeology of environmental resources, with the exploration of the jurisdictional dimension of practices at site scale (archaeology of commons) and, following communitarian archaeology, through an intensive dialogue with present-day local communities. Studying and collaborating with present societies, archaeology can develop a critique of current forms of protection and policies for rural areas, demonstrating the fragility of their heritage and that its conservation depends on the hidden social and historical dimension of the environmental management, thus to the eminently social dimension of the landscape. In this way Antigone will also:
- provide new protocols for comparative analyses, from multidisciplinary and analytical investigations that aim to identify the relationships between environmental resource management practices, local environmental knowledge and population dynamics, focusing on the social dimension of practices, in the past, as well as in the present. This is being achieved through the construction of a relational database management system, which allows to manage and carry out inquiries on data deriving from the analytical investigation of different kind of sources investigated through different disciplinary lens, kept together by the social micro-historical perspective.
- enrich the theoretical approach, preparing the ground for more complex interpretations of archaeological evidence, through a thorough consideration of the social and jurisdictional dimension of practices.