Evidencias de ocupación antigua en núcleos rurales actualmente habitados: el proyecto arqueológico de Aizarna (Gipuzkoa)

El estudio arqueológico de las comunidades rurales actualmente habitadas ofrece la posibilidad de abordar una serie de problemas historiográficos hasta ahora poco explorados. Este artículo discute los problemas, los métodos y los resultados que pueden derivarse de la investigación arqueológica de los pueblos actuales y presenta la metodología transdisciplinar que ha sido aplicada en las recientes intervenciones llevadas a cabo en el área de Erretorekoa (Aizarna, Gipuzkoa). Lejos de los marcos interpretativos tradicionales, los resultados obtenidos revelan que una parte del poblamiento rural actual pudo originarse en época antigua, evidenciando la resiliencia del mismo. En este sentido, es necesario desarrollar marcos conceptuales adecuados para el reconocimiento, estudio e interpretación de este tipo de registros, mediante el diseño de metodologías específicas que permitan superar las limitaciones impuestas por la propia continuidad de la ocupación en estos contextos

Paesaggi e società medievali nell'Alto Ebro: gestione culturale del bosco ed economia tra VI e XVI secolo

381 p.The present thesis has as its object the Ebro High Basin landscapes and the societies which built them, through an anthracological point of view. More specifically, the thesis deals with the strategies of selection and use of wood, the disposal of charred wooden remains, the practices adopted for the forests' exploitation and maintenance, the dynamics of the arboreal vegetation, the structure and distribution of the fundamental elements of the landscape (such crops, grass pastures, wooden pastures, orchards and woods) and finally the way all the mentioned elements are linked to the political, social and economic transformations the region experimented during the Middle Ages. Attention will be focused on the peasants and the élites residing in Zornoztegi, Zaballa, Aistra, San Miguel de Arganzón and Castillo de Treviño, five abandoned medieval settlements, situated in an area including the present province of Alava (Basque Country) and the Condado of Treviño (Castiglia and León)

Impatto antropico, paesaggio e gestione del suolo. Primi risultati archeobotanici a San Genesio.

Nella seguente tesi sono presentati i risultati dello studio dei reperti archeobotanici, campionati durante le campagne di scavo svoltesi nella località di San Genesio (PI). In particolare vengono esaminati i resti antracologici, carpologici e xilologici relativi alle fasi alto-medievale e pieno-medievale del sito. Viene quindi fatta luce su temi quali il consumo alimentare,l'uso del legno e la gestione del territorio agro-forestale. Particolare importanza viene poi attribuita alla ricostruzione paleoambientale di tre fasi del sito (secoli VII, X, XIII) mettendo in evidenza la relazione dinamica tra vegetazione, economia e impatto antropico

Paesaggi e società medievali nell'Alto Ebro: gestione culturale del bosco ed economia tra VI e XVI secolo

381 p.The present thesis has as its object the Ebro High Basin landscapes and the societies which built them, through an anthracological point of view. More specifically, the thesis deals with the strategies of selection and use of wood, the disposal of charred wooden remains, the practices adopted for the forests' exploitation and maintenance, the dynamics of the arboreal vegetation, the structure and distribution of the fundamental elements of the landscape (such crops, grass pastures, wooden pastures, orchards and woods) and finally the way all the mentioned elements are linked to the political, social and economic transformations the region experimented during the Middle Ages. Attention will be focused on the peasants and the élites residing in Zornoztegi, Zaballa, Aistra, San Miguel de Arganzón and Castillo de Treviño, five abandoned medieval settlements, situated in an area including the present province of Alava (Basque Country) and the Condado of Treviño (Castiglia and León)

Jurisdiction, local societies and pracices. A methodological perspective on the archaeology of commons in the Basque Country

This paper aims at discussing the theoretical and methodological background of an investigation conducted in different mountainous areas of the Basque Country, focused on the archaeological analysis of the common-lands. This investigation forms part of a wider project (ARCHIMEDE) which tested the possibility to archaeological investigate the jurisdictional dimension of common-lands, through case studies located in different mountains of southern Europe. Investigations crossed archival research, archaeological surveys and excavation, integrated with geochemical and archaeobotanical analyses, including wood charcoal, pollen, non pollen palynomorphs, phytoliths and other calcitic microfossils and radiocarbon dating. We will focus in particular on the results of the investigation of medieval and post-medieval seasonal settlements (Malla and Beorlatza), where the investigation linked in-site and extra-sites contexts. The aim was to reconstruct changes in the environmental resources management practices and in the way to occupy and inhabit the mountain space, considering practices in their double meaning of ways to product primary products and possession acts to claim jurisdiction and access rights. The methodological question are referred to the relationship between of site and off-site and between sinchronicity and diachronicity in the archaeological record and at a micro-analytical level

Identification of palaeofires through the physico-chemical characterisation of sediments (Aizarna, Gipuzkoa)

La construcción del hábitat rural, así como de los espacios de producción agraria asociados, es un proceso de largo recorrido en el que intervienen factores ambientales y humanos. Entre estos últimos, el uso del fuego juega un papel fundamental como estrategia de acondicionamiento del entorno. Mediante una combinación de indicadores físicos (susceptibilidad magnética) y químicos (fluorescencia de rayos X), este artículo identifica y caracteriza la impronta del fuego en sedimentos agrícolas históricos en la localidad de Aizarna (Gipuzkoa, País Vasco)The construction of rural habitats, as well as the productive spaces linked to them, is a long-term process defined by the intervention of different environmental and anthropic factors. Among the latter, the use of fire plays a major role as a land management strategy. Using a combination of physical (magnetic susceptibility) and chemical (X-ray fluorescence) indicators, this paper aims to identify and characterise the occurrence of fire in historical agricultural soils, in order to widen our knowledge on the formation of such records, and to describe the forms of resource management in the rural world. This approach has been tested in Aizarna village (Gipuzkoa, Basque Country

De montes comunes y sociedades campesinas. Los resultados del proyecto ARCHIMEDE en el Pa\ueds Vasco

This paper presents some of the main results of the research conducted in different mountainous areas of the Basque Country as part of a wider project on the analyses of common-lands in southern Europe. The main aim of the project is to delve into the dynamic nature and historic dimension of the management of these lands, from the standpoint of agrarian and rural archaeologies. An interdisciplinary methodology allows us to analyse the transformations of management systems and environmental resources since the Middle Ages, showing that throughout the Modern Ages there is a progressive disappearance of the multiple agro-silvo-pastoral activities. In addition, we will argue on how these changes relate with those in the jurisdictional realm of the management of collective spaces within peasant societies