Towards an Archaeology of Pastoralism in Southern Europe : Following the Steps of Past Shepherds

This volume examines seasonal pastoralism from a diachronic perspective, with case studies that, across the volume, trace its development from the Neolithic to the twentieth century and explore the archaeological methods used to analyse these long-term processes.

This volume examines seasonal pastoralism from a diachronic perspective, with case studies that, across the volume, trace its development from the Neolithic to the twentieth century and explore the archaeological methods used to analyse these long-term processes. Bringing together recent research on landscape archaeology to study ancient pastoralism from the perspective of a great variety of academic traditions, it includes chronological specializations and methodological approaches. The work takes various approaches from the archaeology of architecture, ethnographical perspectives, new dating methods and computational analysis to identify and date seasonal pastoralism. Study areas presented range from the Atlantic mountains of Galicia to the central Slovakian mountains, via the Cantabrian Range, the Pyrenees, and the Slovenian Alps. It provides an overview of the state of the art of the Archaeology of Pastoralism in Europe by examining unpublished data and ground-breaking research in this field. By summarizing the results of the research presented in this book, it is possible to shed light on the historical depth of agro-livestock farming ways of life in mountain areas across Mediterranean regions and other parts of Europe from the Neolithic period onwards. This volume may be of interest to archaeologists, geographers, biologists and other scholars interested in alpine environments, as well as anyone interested in the material heritage of pastoralism in rural regions.