Authors

Francesco Carrer¹, Guillem Domingo Ribas¹, Iza Romanowska², Isaac Ullah³

¹ Newcastle University (UK); ² Aarhus University (Denmark); ³ San Diego State University (USA)

Abstract

Mobile pastoralism is one of the most important land-use strategies in mountain regions around the world. Seasonal movement of flocks and herds foster the complementary exploitation of different and distant environments and enable pastoral communities to rely on ecological niches that are not suitable for crop farming (Khazanov 1984). Upland landscapes, often marginal for agricultural purposes, provide a valuable resource for pastoralists, which can use the open pastures for animal grazing during the summer season. Persistent animal farming contributes to changing the ecology and character of upland landscapes.

Seasonal occupation of mountain pastures is documented since the Neolithic period through archaeological and palaeoecological proxies (e.g. Walsh & Giguet-Covex 2019 for the European Alps). The impact of pastoral practices on mountain ecologies is evident since the onset and increases with the intensification of pastoralism in later Prehistory (Bajard et al. 2017; Sevink et al. 2019). In historical periods, pastoralists were accused (often without solid evidence) of being the main drivers of increasing environmental degradation and slope destabilisation (Carrer et al. 2020). Today the narrative is split. On the one hand traditional small-scale animal farming is considered essential to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services, and it is a crucial feature of the material/immaterial heritage in many rural areas of the world (Fernández-Giménez & Fillat Estaque 2012). On the other hand, a huge reduction in meat and dairy consumption is advocated by the scientific community to tackle climate change and global warming (Poore & Nemecek 2018). In between, there is also the vulnerability of pastoral communities, threatened not only by climate change, but also by socioeconomic marginalisation. Understanding the environmental role of pastoral strategies is a key step to develop policies that promote the sustainable management of mountain landscapes and the resilience of mountain communities.

Only the analysis of the long-term interaction between pastoralists and mountain environments can help addressing these complex issues. Unfortunately, archaeological and historical data alone do not provide enough information to infer the characteristics of pastoral strategies in the past. Moreover, the different spatial and temporal resolutions of palaeoecology and archaeology prevent robust causal associations between their datasets, and the mechanisms behind pastoral impact on the ecosystems are still poorly understood. To overcome these constraints, the PLAS research programme (Pastoralism and Landscape Sustainability) relies on ethnoarchaeological approaches and computational modelling. Ethnoarchaeological research is carried out to compare the materiality of pastoralism in the present and in the past and to deduce the socioeconomic and cultural processes associated with it. Computer modelling is used to simulate alternative ethnoarchaeological scenarios of pastoral land use and compare the outcomes of the simulation with available archaeological and palaeoecological data. Just like in standard experimental practice, both good and bad matches can provide relevant information and invaluable insights (Premo 2007). Furthermore, computer simulation enables the assessment of long-term processes, beyond the temporal scale of any ethnographic research and with a much higher resolution than traditional archaeological interpretation.

Three case studies have been investigated by PLAS in the last five years, chosen as representative examples of different types of mountain environments in Europe and of different pastoral systems. The long-term effects of prehistoric pastoralism on high-altitude land cover and soil have been assessed in an upland sector of the Central Italian Alps. This research combined ethnoarchaeological information and newly acquired archaeological and palaeoecological data with  equation-based modelling (to infer the subsistence of Bronze Age communities in the area; Carrer et al. 2019) and agent-based modelling (to simulate soil erosion and accumulation under pastoral pressure; Barton et al. 2012). Ethnoarchaeology and agent-based modelling were used alongside archaeological and historical sources to assess how the structure of the rural landscapes (including land ownership) of Aspromonte (Southern Italy) conditioned the strategies of local herders, and how these dynamics contributed to the slope instability that led to the abandonment of the area in the second half of the 20^th century. Circuit theory modelling (McLean & Rubio-Campillo 2022) was employed to assess if the layout of prehistoric and historic landscapes in Devon (UK) (including the field systems, historic boundaries and road networks) was influenced by transhumant mobility from the coast to the uplands (Fox 2012).

Preliminary results suggest that the association between pastoralism and long-term environmental degradation is more complex than usually claimed, but also that different pastoral strategies can be more ecologically sustainable than others. PLAS research seems to show that pastoralism had a paramount role in the formation of rural landscapes, but it also revealed that pastoral exploitation of the mountains is not merely adaptive and is often shaped by complex socioeconomic and historical circumstances. Computational modelling was essential to achieve these results. It provided a platform to integrate different types of information and to explicitly test scientific hypotheses. It provided the intellectual framework to develop robust scenarios about the past, with the support of ethnoarchaeological insights. And it expanded the chronological range of this research, enabling the analysis of long-term socioecological patterns. The  robustness of the research outcomes and their timescale have the potential to influence future landscape management policies in mountain regions.

References

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