Holcomb J

Kinnaird T

Lekakis S

Sevara C

Shillito LM

Srivastava A

Turner S

English

Newcastle University E-Prints

Agricultural terraces in the Mediterranean: a multidisciplinary approach to understanding human-landscape interactions School of Earth and Environmental Sciences University of St Andrews Bute Building Queen's Terrace St Andrews KY16 9TSSchool of History, Classics and Archaeology Armstrong Building Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RUAgricultural terraces, which demonstrate an ingenious and sustainable way of transforming hilly slopes into arable land, are widespread in Mediterranean landscapes,stretching from southern Portugal to the Judean Highlands. Despite their ecological and heritage values, there remain signi�cant temporal and spatial gaps in understandingtheir histories, how they were constructed and what their socio-economic implications were for early populations. This lack of knowledge further restricts understanding thee�ects of terracing on landscape in terms of mitigating the impacts of past climate change and informing sustainable strategies for the future of land-management. To this end, we employed a multidisciplinary approach to a case study in Naxos, Greece. A GIS-based technique which uses a range of cartographic remote sensing data wasemployed to identify over 20 terrace sites, and trenches were hand-dug and placed in a relative chronological sequence using a portable optically stimulated luminescence(OSL) dating reader and gamma spectrometer. Samples were then collected for absolute OSL dating, micromorphology and x-ray �uorescence (XRF) analyses. Trench pro�leswere documented using high-resolution image-based modelling for accurate sample location and volumetric reconstruction of soil layers, and historic and modern aerialspaceborne data were used together with sample results to create models of terrace systems for spatiotemporal analyses. The results of this multidisciplinary approach adopted here have produced evidence of large-scale land-use in periods for which no other evidence indicative of landscapeexploitation survives.  A chronological  framework based on over 25 OSL ages suggests terrace construction in Naxos between ~400 BC and the 16  century  AD withintensi�cation during the Medieval Greek period. Applications of soil micromorphology and XRF analyses identify key evidence of natural soil development and past land useincluding irrigation, soil mixing, crop residues and anthropogenic fertilisers. Modelling of terrace system development indicate their value as long-term resilient, adaptableagricultural and environmental features: where terrace systems have been maintained, reused, or abandoned under vegetation landscapes appear to maintain greaterstability, retaining valuable soils and habitats compared to areas where terrace systems have been a�ected by overgrazing or consolidated by mechanical means. Weconclude that our multidisciplinary approach has concomitant implications for the future sustainability and biodiversity of Mediterranean landscapes and beyond. How to cite: Srivastava, A., Kinnaird, T., Turner, S., Sevara, C., Holcomb, J., Lekakis, S., and Shillito, L.-M.: Agricultural terraces in the Mediterranean: a multidisciplinaryapproach to understanding human-landscape interactions , EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-580, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-580, 2022. EGU22-580https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-580EGU General Assembly 2022© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.Aayush Srivastava , Tim Kinnaird , Sam Turner , Chris Sevara , Justin Holcomb , Stelios Lekakis , and Lisa-Marie Shillito1 1 2 2 2 2 212th

Agricultural terraces in the Mediterranean: a multidisciplinary approach to understanding human-landscape interactions

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Agricultural terraces in the Mediterranean: a multidisciplinary approach to understanding human-landscape interactions

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