The role that the environment has played in human past has taken on an ever greater presence in archaeology literature, following the progressive abandonment of the idea that the times of change of environmental ecosystems were necessarily of a very long period. The reconstruction of the topographical structures of forest spaces has in some researches assumed a decisive role to understanding the rhythms of life of the communities. The possibility of making different types of data converge: from archival to topographical ones (from the document to the ground, we could say) undoubtedly opens up roads in this direction. The paper addresses the man-environment relationship in the Middle Ages through recent different case studies of the Po area, starting with sites such as the plain village of Nogara, or the Benedictine monastery of Leno or the alpine village of Piuro. The basic problem remains that of relating the archaeological settlements with the paleoenvironmental elements in a systematic and ever more precise way. In the long phase between the 5th and 10th centuries, the paleoenvironmental data that seem to emerge in northern Italy would show a progressive consolidation of a man-environment relationship mainly centered on the management of natural resources, such as the forest. The changes in residential construction, towards almost exclusively wooden building, seem to involve the management of these collective, public or private assets. The changes, however, which seem to occur mostly within the 5th-7th century AD, should be evaluated with greater precision: processes of erosion, denudation of slopes in mountain areas, rather than the development of swampy or wooded areas in lowland areas underline a diversification of environmental transformations, which perhaps could translate, on a local scale, more general climatic dynamics. Regarding 9th-10th century, the study, not only of some sites, but of the surrounding landscape, has shown how the correlations with human activities are never completely absent and there is to changes in the shape of resource management, rather than to real abandonment of spaces. From this perspective, it is evident, on a methodological level, the need to systemically use paleo-environmental investigations/ multidisciplinary approaches, within the more ‘traditional’ archaeological research, in order to restore the complexity of environmental changes and the characteristics of different landscapes
Archeologia del paesaggio e relazioni uomo-ambiente: risorse, natura e luoghi in Italia settentrionale tra V e X secolo d.C.
fabio saggioro
2022-01-01
Abstract
The role that the environment has played in human past has taken on an ever greater presence in archaeology literature, following the progressive abandonment of the idea that the times of change of environmental ecosystems were necessarily of a very long period. The reconstruction of the topographical structures of forest spaces has in some researches assumed a decisive role to understanding the rhythms of life of the communities. The possibility of making different types of data converge: from archival to topographical ones (from the document to the ground, we could say) undoubtedly opens up roads in this direction. The paper addresses the man-environment relationship in the Middle Ages through recent different case studies of the Po area, starting with sites such as the plain village of Nogara, or the Benedictine monastery of Leno or the alpine village of Piuro. The basic problem remains that of relating the archaeological settlements with the paleoenvironmental elements in a systematic and ever more precise way. In the long phase between the 5th and 10th centuries, the paleoenvironmental data that seem to emerge in northern Italy would show a progressive consolidation of a man-environment relationship mainly centered on the management of natural resources, such as the forest. The changes in residential construction, towards almost exclusively wooden building, seem to involve the management of these collective, public or private assets. The changes, however, which seem to occur mostly within the 5th-7th century AD, should be evaluated with greater precision: processes of erosion, denudation of slopes in mountain areas, rather than the development of swampy or wooded areas in lowland areas underline a diversification of environmental transformations, which perhaps could translate, on a local scale, more general climatic dynamics. Regarding 9th-10th century, the study, not only of some sites, but of the surrounding landscape, has shown how the correlations with human activities are never completely absent and there is to changes in the shape of resource management, rather than to real abandonment of spaces. From this perspective, it is evident, on a methodological level, the need to systemically use paleo-environmental investigations/ multidisciplinary approaches, within the more ‘traditional’ archaeological research, in order to restore the complexity of environmental changes and the characteristics of different landscapes
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