Archaeology of Commons: a Multidisciplinary Approach to the Reconstruction of Multiple Uses and Conflicts on European Uplands

Abstract

The paper presents a multidisciplinary research project ("Archaeology of Commons: cultural Heritage and Material Evidence of a Disappearing Europe") on the archaeology of common-lands. The main goal of the project is to investigate, by means of historical and archaeological analysis, the intimate social dimension at the base of the common lands management in the context of southern European mountainous regions. Research investigates the dynamic nature of commons starting from the reconstruction of the present organisation of common lands, going back to the complex transformations of common properties in the nineteenth century and analysing the problem of the archaeological visibility of conflicts since the ancien régime. The project will examine how archaeological methods could clarify different aspects of the history of the collective access rights to land, by applying in selected mountain areas methodological approaches based on historical ecology, rural and agrarian archaeology.

The Archeology of Woodland Ecology: Reconstructing Past Woodmanship Practices of Wooded Pasture Systems in Italy

“…with archeological evidence, including those recognized by historical ecology and sedimentary sources (palynology, anthracology, etc.) [83,84]. One of the case studies of this project was Urbiarrate (UTM 30 N ETRS89-Lat.…”

“…This area was subject in the past to a land management system providing a collective use of environmental resources, but at the same time, forms of temporary appropriation by private social actors, through the establishment/exercise of the so-called "seles." Seles are defined and circumscribed spaces inserted within the common lands and linked to specific uses that were, at least in the postmedieval period, the subject of various conflicts and which today are mostly privatized ( [85,86], in [83]). Archeological investigations were carried out inside the beech forest, in an area of about 1.4 hectares and included between 1200 and 1000 m asl, highlighting the presence of a dozens of charcoal hearth soils of different size (minimum 3-4 m of diameter and maximum 6-7 m).…”