This thesis, inserted within a research in landscape, settlement and spatial archaeology, proposes over the very long run the study of spatial dynamics of settlements in an intermountainous territory constituted by a massif hardly offering passages, but partially crossed by a north-east, south-west syncline depression at the bottom of which flows a river.
The behavioral perspective of this study being dependent on a decisive environmental context, although unstable and little known, wishes to draw attention to the Holocene chrono-cultural potential of the Aures region and more specifically in the Wadi Abiod valley in the Saharan Atlas, in terms of heritage presence, by the use of new and more in-depth studies and investigations to support archaeological research and to boost the interest and significance on its important antecedents currently unprotected, endangered and, to a certain extent, complicated to manage and promote.
Therefore, the research aims to provide a support for the enhancement and valorization of this natural and cultural landscape, and its affiliated values, in a sustainable way, based on a scientific and historic documentation, knowledge, and fruition by the application of an integrated approach of research-combined methodologies, and technologies to make more immersive the idea of rediscovery of cultural heritage in a multidisciplinary way by underlining the coexistence of the different cultural assets and focusing on the complex relationships between habitat e biome.
These last ones are studied in their natural and historical contexts with an integrated approach combining archaeological, anthropological and geomorphological parameters, to foster the knowledge of the natural sites and the numerous manifestations of material and immaterial culture. From this point of view, it was indispensable the implementation of meticulous and precise procedures to generate useful results on the above described premises, in particular in the case of problem-oriented territorial investigations.
In fact, the best results are attained when using a research methodology that consists of two parts. One part regarded the assessment of the environmental data, while the other part focused on the extraction of an anthropic evidence from these data. This portion constituted
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the purposefulness phase of the procedure: through the application of different methods, it evidenced the posed historical - archaeological question.
The proposed research procedure was applied on this particular case- study that regards a natural and cultural landscape, from the Neolithic to modern times (19th century). This chronological interval was necessary for the analysis of society-environment interactions, that have been noticeable since prehistory. In addition, This diachronic approach stemmed from the need to understand the contribution of past legacies in the processes observed at different times: these processes underlined the importance of understanding the occupation of the territory in ancient times in order to discern the extent of the modifications, or continuities observed. Whereas, the archaeological method in this case was based on a regressive analysis, which studies the most recent periods in order to go towards the oldest. By starting at the state of the best known landscape (the traditional or the 19th century one), an attempt to reconstruct in reverse the past stages of the evolution of this landscape from available sources (maps, parcels, written sources) was performed. Functional and chronological hypotheses were then established for elements of the landscape that made it possible to compensate for the lack of documentation for older societies. While, The emergence of the environmental question has taken place through the notion of occupation of space by ancient societies. From then on, the work has focused on studying the social construction of the environment through the identification of the modes of exploitation of natural resources, and the analysis of processes by the study of trajectories, and their effects on past legacies, by the application of GIS-based procedures and a three-dimensional representation, that provided an understanding of the complex morphology of the territory, in combination with the settlement theory, that highlighted the expected spatial patterns, facilitated the correlation of the anthropic and climatic modalities of environmental evolution, and grasped the impacts for the ancient societies that inhabited and exploited the space in the valley of Wadi Abiod, long been considered isolated
