RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 On the origin of rural landscapes: Looking for physico-chemical fingerprints of historical agricultural practice in the Atlantic Basque Country (N Spain)
A1 Narbarte Hernández, Josu
A1 Iriarte Avilés, Eneko
A1 Rad Moradillo, Juan Carlos
A1 Carrancho Alonso, Ángel
A1 González Sampériz, Penélope
A1 Peña Chocarro, Leonor
A1 Quirós Castillo, Juan Antonio
K1 Agriculture
K1 Geoarchaeology
K1 Soils
K1 Geochemistry
K1 Core sampling
K1 Social change
K1 Agricultura
K1 Agriculture
K1 Arqueología
K1 Archaeology
AB Evolution and change in agricultural practice is a major factor in the codification of social relations and represents one of the main resources employed by human societies to establish a durable relationship with their environment. Using a multi-proxy integrated approach, this paper seeks to decipher the long-term dynamics that have shaped agricultural landscapes in the Basque Country (N Spain). Social and economic indicators (archival records, toponymy and oral sources) are used along with geological core sampling (geochemistry, magnetic, palynological and carpological analyses) to reconstruct a diachronic sequence of human settlement and agricultural management in the village of Aizarna over the last ~1500 years. The oldest records obtained refer to non-agricultural human activities dating back to the Roman period. Later on, traces of agricultural landscape-transformation can be divided into four main phases: 1) the onset of terraced agriculture, defined by the clearance and terracing of previous forested areas during the Early Middle Ages; 2) a Late Medieval reorganisation, with new terraces being (re)constructed close to dispersed farmsteads, linked to the emergence of the modern rural landscape; 3) a new model of intensive polyculture developed during the Modern period as a consequence of the introduction of new crops of American origin; and 4) the mechanisation and commercialisation of the agricultural production over the 20th century. These results provide a valuable pathway for the investigation of currently inhabited rural contexts, and offer, for the first time in this region, an overview on long-term landscape construction in the Atlantic areas of the Basque Country.
PB Elsevier
SN 0048-9697
YR 2019
FD 2019-09
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10259/5151
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10259/5151
LA eng
NO Fieldwork was funded by the Culture Department of the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa, and by the Project “Peasant Agency and socio-political complexity in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages” (Ministry of Economy, AEI/FEDER EU HUM2016-76094-C4-2-R), jointly participated in by the Research Group on Heritage and Cultural Landscapes (Basque Government, IT936-16) and the Group of Rural Studies (UPV/EHU-CSIC Associated Unit). Á. Carrancho acknowledges the financial support given by the Consejería de Educación, Junta de Castilla y León (project BU235P18) with also FEDER funding.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Burgos
RD 25-abr-2024