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Creighton, O.H

Segui, J

SAGVNTVM Papeles del Laboratorio de Arqueología de Valencia

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PAUL BEAVITT. NEIL CHRISTIE. JOSEP GISBERTx 3.95m, bui l t  on level ground (pl.a). I t  is st i l l  roofed, butno longer acts as either a residence, farmhouse or store; ins-tead debris (rubbish, firewood) within the building indicatesoccasional recent usage by shepherds. Internal built featuresconsist of traces of a raised partition in the western part ofthe house, and of a chimney central against the north wall,immediately opposite the doorway; in the north-east corneris a likely cupboard fbundation. Set close to main road, andwith a deep rock-cut cistern with built dome c.20m distant,VG5 offers only l imited terracing in i ts vicinity, to bothwest and south. The terraced area was still under almondcultivation. Clearly here the building was never designed toserve or accommodate animals and its only partially ruinedroof might indicate that this is a relatively recent farmhousefor an agriculturalist/farmer who now merely maintains theterraces. Nonetheless, much older temaces, now badly over-grown and disturbed, extend from the road up the hill and tonear the summit ridge of Tossal de Lamp, which divides LaGallinera from La Llacuna; these terraces radiate out fiomthe small  (store?) and seemingly much older bui lding VG l3(710m) of  jus t  c .3 .6  x  3 . lm (p I .5) .  The ter races reveal  s ignsalso of almond cultivation and the complex perhaps relatesto upper slope farming on the part of the former owner ofVG5.  VGl3 has recent ly  been 'decommiss ioned '  in  thattiles from its roof were neatly stacked on the west flank ofthe bui lding (although now slowly becoming obscured byshrub growth).IV. POST.ABANDONMENT CORRALSEQUENCES (JS, OC)In  con junc t i on  w i t h  t he  Se r ra  de  l 'A lm i ran t  su rveywork, a related ethnoarchaeological study was undertakenat Easter 1996 of 'abandoned' pastoral sites in the Famorcaregion, located in the Alcoi mountains in the north of theAlicante province. The airns were two-fold: f i rst ly, to assessthe value of studying present-day pastoral abandonmentprocesses as a comparison with site abandonment and fbr-mation processes in the archaeological record, and secondlyto gain an ethnographic understanding of seasonal environ-mental exploitation by shepherds in an area still employingtraditional practices. Such studies have been pioneered insouthern American and Pacific contexts. but are so far lar-gely lacking fbr the Mediterranean, although a growing cor-pus of  e thnoarchaeolog ica l  research in  Greece (Chang1992),I taly (Barker & Grant 1991) and now Spain (Beavittet al.  1995; Seguf 1995) provides a valuable start ing-point.The study embodied a multi-stage approach, commen-cing with the structural recording of all known pastoral sitesin  the Famorca rea and the deta i led scrut iny  o f  ar t i fac t  d is -t r ibut ions and composi t ions in  and around each s i te ;  asecond phase saw EDM planning of a selected 'typical' site.combined with grid-walked artefact col lect ion; the thirdstage consisted of a structured programme of interviewswith members of the local pastoral community, supplyinginfbrmation against which to compare 'archaeological inter-1 1 4preta t ions '  o f  the abandoned s i tes  ( fbr  fu l l  ana lys is  seeCreighton & Segui, forthcoming).(i) Landscape and EconomyThe southern limits of the Famorca territory are definedby the Serrella mountains, whilst the Alfaro mountains defi-ne the northern extent. A number of geological fblds orien-ted SW-NE traverse the study area which is bisected by theW-E running Castell de Castells rambLa (dry river bed); thelandscape is characterised by a profusion of small terracesadapted to the folded topography. The climate is classicallyMediterranean, with a summer drought, even winter tempe-ratures and a maximum of precipitation in the autumn.In socio-economic terms a high rate of rural emigrationhas ensured fairly recent massive population decline; at pre-sent  approx imate ly  50 people  on ly  l ive  in  the v i l lage ofFamorca, with the summer season heralding a short-termpopulation increase. Agriculture has long been rnainly con-centrated upon almond and olive oil production, with a gra-dual abandonment of the least viable terraces. Mechanisa-tion and f'ertilisers have greatly facilitated increased produc-tion, but the unpredictability of the harvest and of the mar-ket structure in general has led young people to leave thevillage in search of more secure employment in the cities.Pastoral activity has consequently declined markedly, espe-cially in terms of those practices managing only a limitednumber  o f  an imals .  Indeed,  present ly  there is  on ly  one(elderly) part icipant managing a small  f lock (of c' .30 ani-mals) .These dramatic changes have all had an impact on theold structures of pastoralism, the corrals, most of which arenow ruinous. The elderly shepherd utilises two corrals on aseasonal basis, but with episodic supplementary usage ofadd i t i ona l  co r ra l s .  Du r i ng  E ,as te r ,  howeve r .  a  m ig ran tshepherd with a large flock (over 200 sheep), now comes tctthe area fiom some 500km distance in a quest for economi-cally viable pastures; his presence, albeit brief, is nonethe-less witnessed in some of the corrals studied. A greateremphasis on ol ive and almond cult ivat ion meanwhile, com-bined with mechanisation, has removed the role of manycorrals, which were in any case often located so as to avoidareas of cultivation; some coffals have been used by agri-culturalists to store some implements, or otherwise as shel-ters, and for herding activi t ies. Ruinous corrals also nowfunction as cover and shelter for hunters. Hunting retains animportant role, for both food and sport. As a normally tran-sient activity, the signals lefi by hunters fifty years ago werecertainly less obvious than today, with the need to re-usecartr idges previously ensuring systematic recol lect ion af ier-use,  whereas d iscarded empty  car t r idges and car t r idgeboxes abound at present within and around corrals.As noted, a key aim of the study was to understand thevaried modes of post-abandonment activi ty at the corrals.These can be summarised as follows:. Some corrals were abandoned, leaving them entirelyunused and, through neglect, ruinous.AGRO-PASTORALISM IN UPLAND EASTERN SPAIN: THE SERRA DE L,ALMIRANT I99.5-96INTERIM REPORT. Some abandoned corrals were used. almost immedia-tely after their disuse as herding sites, or as a sourcefo r  bu i l d i ng  ma te r i a l s .  T i l es  and ,  i n  some  cases ,beams, were taken from corral roofs. and re-used inthe village; in certain corrals these materials are piledup await ing col lect ion (Re-use Type l).. Some corrals have been partially re-used as storageareas, normally fbr i tems of low value that ownerswould not keep in their houses in the vi l lage (Re-useType 2).. Some corrals have been converted into garages (Re-use Type 3).( i i t  Ti les and ArtefactsFor each pastoral structure recorded, the volume of tilewas recorded,  respect ive ly  in  ( i )  the ' in ter ior '  or  (pre-viously) roof'ed area of the site, (ii) the 'enclosure' area ofthe site (non-roofed areas of the sites bounded by walls),and ( i i i )  the 'environs' of the site (encompassing an areawithin 20m of the edge of the structures). The col lectedmaterials could be further divided into (a) whole tiles, stac-ked or in storage, (b) whole tiles not stacked, (c) part tiles(the long axis being greater than 20cm), and (d) tile frag-ments (the long axis being less than 20cm). In addition thenumber of t i les in these various states st i l l  in ^sirrz on theroof was estimated, as was the original total number of tiles.Other artefacts were collected in each of the three typesof reused corrals and in each of the three dif ferentiatedzones within these corrals. The artefacts could be dividedin to  lhe lb l lowing categor ies :.  ' W o r k '  i t e m s ,  s u b d i v i d e d  i n t o  i t e m s  u s e d  b yshepherds,  hunters  and agr icu l tura l is ts .  Ar te factsclassified into these groups were either of industrialor hand-made origin, but originating in one of theseareas of activity. Thus, for instance, a hoe was coun-ted as an agricultural item, and a cartridge as a hun-t ing i tern. In the shepherd's case, i tems used as fod-der, such as olive tree branches or sacks of almondsskin. were alsc'r counted.. Building materiuL,s. This ref-ers to any building mate-rial apart fiom tiles found on or near the site, compri-sing pieces of wall ,  or t imbers spread on the f- loor.This was a dif f icult  i tem to assess. because in someof the corrals the level of destruction is extremelvh igh.. 'Other', refering to any other item fbund on the sitenot related to any of the activities areas cited above -for instance, a cigarette packet or tuna tin.I t  has been contended that the study of abandonmentbehaviour should focus less on the process per se, but moreon the aspects of that behaviour relating to the compositionof the material remains and their spatial patterning (Tomka& Stevenson 1993: 193). In this sense, the process of corralabandonment in the Famorca area is intimately related tothe survival of the nucleated villase as a settlement in thepresent landscape. The continuation of settlement at Famor-ca has played a role in the reception of materials fiom aban-doned corrals, in addition to, conversely, being the sourceof a proportion of items found in the corrals. Notably, dis-tance appears not to be a signif icant determinant of theassemblage of materials originating fiom corrals; thus tilesfrom corrals a considerable distance from the village wereused in its rebuilding. Certainly the presence of pack ani-mals is an important factor, as they could readi ly reachcorrals when good tracks or roads were not available. Onthe other hand, distance from the village appears to be aninfluential determinant of the selection of artefacts whichemanated from the vi l lage found in corrals. Addit ional ly,distance is an important f'actor influencing the selection ofcorrals used as stores, or as places to leave unwanted items(a l though not  'unwanted '  enough to  be thrown away) .Corrals situated near the village durnp are correspondinglyinf'luenced in terms of their artef'act assemblage characteris-tics, with items either bought intentionally to the corrals byshepherds, or transported by other f'actors, such as the windor other people.(iii) DiscussionThe 'abandonment'  of corrals in the Famorca regionemerges as a complex process. A continuum exists betweenthe complete abandonment of a site in a single phase andthe continuation of activity at corrals still in use. Betweenthese two extremes come various modes of activity such asoccasional or seasonal re-use of a site fbr pastoral functions.These processes of semi-abandonment activity are manif'es-ted in a number of ways. Although post-abandoment pat-terns of activity vary, a number of trends emerge: functio-nally, corrals can become places fbr the stora-qe of a widerange of i tems; spatial ly. the structure of a corral can bealtered in line with different modes of activity, ofien in thecont ract ion o f  the roofed area;  tempora l ly ,  ac t iv i ty  canbecome concentrated into a small number of days per yearwhen the corral is used. Clearly. in order to understandthese processes fully, or more coherently, the abandonmento f  a n  i n d i v i d u a l  s i t e  m u s t  b e  r e l a t e d  t o  t h eabandonment/partial bandonment/survival of other sites aswell as to any nearby extant settlement(s).V. ETHNOGRAPHIC SURVEY (JS, PB)The ethnographic fieldwork on the Serra de I'Almirantzone presented here has been carried out primarily by JoanSegui with help from Ferran Naya. A body of ethnographicdata was recorded over five weeks in the Easter and sum-mer of 1994 and over another flve weeks in the Easter andsummer of 1995. The survey was undertaken by means ofinterviews with those shepherds t i l l  l iv ing in rhe val ley,most of whom no longer keep sheep; however, a few conti-nuing active shepherds were also interviewed. The principalaims of the interviews were to define the profiles of the eco-nomics o f  pastora l ism th iough examin ing the d i f ferentt 7 5PAUL BEAVITT. NEIL CHRISTIE. JOSEP GISBERTAcknowledgementsWe would l ike to thank various inst i tut ions and peoplefor their help and support for this project: Conselleria deCultura i  Educacir i ;  Valencia University and in part icularPilar Fumanal of the Dep. de Geografia; the Vall de Galli-nera and Vil lalonga Counci ls fbr their hospital i ty and assis-tance. including access to their l :10.000 topographic maps;Leicester University Arts Budget Centre for financial sup-port;  the various Leicester University Masters students inPost-Excavation Ski l ls fbr their hard work; the Universityof  Le icester  for  t rave l  grants  for  these s tudents ;  Ol iverCreighton and Luisa Dallai.  who stunned us al l  with theirEDM expe r t i se  and  t he i r  i n i t i a l  G IS  ana l yses ;  f o r  t heFamorca sLlrvey work thanks are extended to Pablo Adelan-tado, Josep Castel l6, Israel P6rez and David Seguf; SarahBeauchamp at Leicester for typing duties; Debbie Miles fbrproducing and redrawing the figures; Matt Dodds for deve-loping the photographs; and f inal ly, Mr and Mrs Ram6nSegui fbr their exceptional hospital i ty.BIBLIOGRAPHYBAN YOSEF. 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Post-abandonment corral sequences

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