Modern pastoral landscapes on the island of Sardinia (Italy). Recent pastoral practices in local versus macro-economic and macro-political contexts

Abstract

Archaeological interest in pastoralism -i.e. the predominant reliance on herded animals such as sheep and cattle for the production of food and other items for domestic consumption and (market) exchange -is gradually growing in the Mediterranean region and elsewhere. Ethno-archaeological studies in particular have paid attention to recent historical and contemporary pastoral economies as a consequence of the difficulties in recognizing pastoral material culture in the archaeological evidence. This paper will present an ethno-archaeological case study of recent pastoral economies in a mountain region in Sardinia (Italy), which have been investigated from a landscape perspective. I argue that the archaeologically visible features of pastoral and rural landscapes generally should be considered the outcome of both spatially and temporally diverse rural practices on the local level and their interaction with wider economic and political structures.

Forest changes over a century in Sardinia: implications for conservation in a Mediterranean hotspot

“…The history of the landscape in Sardinia has always been strongly correlated with human civilization dominating the island (Pungetti 1985;Mientjes 2004). Colonized since pre-historical times (13,500 years BP according to Hofmeijer 1997), the island has undergone a transformation from a landscape dominated by closed primary forests to a mosaic of agro-silvopastoral patches (Pungetti 1985).…”

Landscape Construction and Long-Term Economic Practices: an Example from the Spanish Mediterranean Uplands Through Rock Art Archaeology

“…Medieval trashumance, on the other hand, has been thoroughly studied (e.g., Butzer 1988;Mangas 1992;Bacaicoa et al 1993;Farnós et al 1993;Pallaruelo 1993;Roigé Ventura et al 1993;Rubio de Lucas et al 1993a, b;Fernández Temprado et al 1996;López Sáez et al 2009), as one example of this type of pastoral institutions in the Mediterranean (Mientjes 2004;Barker 2005). The study of transhumance is only partially useful when tracing back the practice and continuity of the Mediterranean pastoral activities, because certain historical, political, and social factors enabled transhumance-among others, royal privileges allowed the 20 Studies are slightly biased towards research on transhumance, since small-scale movements, directed towards subsistence rather than large-scale economic activities, lacked the social significance and the historic connotations of trashumance, and were therefore hardly considered and recorded, even in later times.…”

“…Life along this continuum is not easy to grasp archaeologically otherwise. Archaeology and ethnoarchaeology of pastoralism in the Mediterranean is growing (e.g., Creighton and Seguí 1998;Mientjes 2004;Christie et al 2007) as well 21 Mediterranean mountains "are actually closely integrated into the patterns of production and communication that abut them" (Horden and Purcell 2000, p. 81). Geography shows this: in the Spanish Mediterranean basin, numerous natural corridors link the coast to the inland and mountainous areas-e.g.…”

Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science : From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach

“…To date, most landscape archaeological studies of pastoralism have adopted ethno-archaeological approaches, which means the investigation of recent historical and modern material culture aimed at the creation of methodologies useful in the study of the archaeological past. Likewise, my research in Sardinia, which will be discussed below, focused on recent pastoralism (Mientjes 2004(Mientjes , 2008a(Mientjes , 2008b. Here, I want to acknowledge that it is difficult to directly observe distinctive strategies in pastoral production and patterns of pastoral mobility in the archaeological record.…”