The Classical Karst is a plateau of low rounded hills and low mountains ranging from 100-200 m to 800-900 m above sea level, that covers the eastern most part of northern Italy and the southwestern part of Slovenia.
The outcropping rocks are chiefly limestones, crossed by two flysch (marl and sandstone) belts, a dozen kilometres wide. The area is not suitable for agriculture, and since historical times pastoralism / herding of sheep and goats has been one of the main economic activities.
Its importance also in prehistoric times – hinted at already at the end of the 19th century by Marchesetti – was confirmed in the late 1990s, when sedimentological and soil micro-morphological analyses of some cave deposits indicated that these sites, at least in the investigated areas, had been used by prehistoric shepherds for stabling their flocks. The re-examination of the archaeological materials found in the same caves suggested that the pastoral use presumably started in the Neolithic and continued till the Bronze or Iron Age.
In the course of millennia the agents and the ways of using the caves would have clearly changed: on the grounds of the available data, and still referring to the models proposed by Brochier c. 20 years ago, at present the hypothesis that most of the Karst caves were basically used as “grottes-bergeries” – i.e. as stables almost without a contemporaneous human presence –, rather than “habitats-bergeries”, is likely, though not beyond doubt.
Our interpretation combines direct and indirect indicators from different scientific fields: besides sedimentology, soil micromorphology and archaeology, at the basis of the renewed interest in pastoralism, archaeometry, geomorphology, archaeozoology, ethnohistory and ethnography.
To test the potentiality of the use of data derived in particular from the last two fields, we have recently extended our research to other geographical areas, close to the Karst, immediately to the north, in the northeastern part of the region Friuli Venezia Giulia, and far away, in Sardinia
