Ethnoarchaeology of Pastoralism in Valcamonica high pastures

The high pastures of Vione, in the northern Valcamonica, have been exploited since many centuries by shepherds and people carring out many other activities. A systematic field survey, made by one of the authors in the summer 2017, has found out many structures, most of them probably linked to the pastoral activities. Fourty-seven buildings have been documented, put on a map thanks to the GIS technology and classified in different categories according to their dimensions, shapes and constructive techniques. Thanks to a multidisciplinary approach, data coming from different fields and sources (such as remote sensing, historical cartography, written sources, historical cadastres and place-names) has been combined - and processed with GIS spatial analysis - in order to understand the interaction between structures and territory; understand pastoral strategy and their changes through time; reconstruct the absolute or relative chronology of the structures; understand the relationship between pastoral structures and rock art. The paper will compare the northern Valcamonica situation emerging from this study with those of the two areas used as model for this research: Val di Sole (Trento) and Lessinia (Verona). Some remarks will be made also about the possible relationship between the analysed structures and Valcamonica graffiti.