Author:
Ferrara Vincenza,Sala Giovanna,Ingemark Dominic,La Mantia Tommaso
Abstract
Groves with ancient olive trees (Olea europaea L.) could be considered remnants of old agroforestry systems. Anything but static, these agro-ecosystems have undergone drastic transformational processes in Mediterranean countries, where abandonment or intensification have been observed far more than continuity, expansion or renaissance, leading to environmental degradation of rural areas. Starting from this assumption and inspired by historical ecology and historical geography, we consider centuries-old olive trees as living archives of human-nature interactions and are thus proxies of past agroforestry. Our aim is to better understand what has driven dynamics of change and persistence, happening today as well as in the past. We first travel backward in time, looking at the ecology of land management systems during the Roman period (ca 200 BC-400 AD) and late Antiquity (ca AD 400-700). The special focus is the island of Sicily, the granary of the Empire, well known as a region where cereal production increased around the latifundia economy. We reconstruct the diversity of land tenure and the ecology of such complex systems, by combining records from Roman agriculturalists and palaeoenvironmental evidence of the past. We then zoom out, to look at today’s management practices in olive groves, thus drawing a parallel between Antiquity and today. Our work provides valuable insights into the correlation between certain organisation models, ecological strategies and adaptation capacity over the long term, clearly showing that human and nature dimensions are interconnected. Such entanglement may be a key element for ensuring these agroecosystems resilience. All elements that may contribute to the re-invention of sustainable forms of their management, for the present and the future.
Subject
Agronomy and Crop Science
Reference100 articles.
1. Alonso N, 2005. Agriculture and food from the Roman to the islamic period in the north-east of the Iberian peninsula: archaeobotanical studies in the city of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). Veg. Hist. Archaeobot. 14:341-61.
2. Baiamonte G, Domina G, Raimondo FM, Bazan G, 2015. Agricultural landscapes and biodiversity conservation: a case study in Sicily (Italy). Biodivers. Conserv. 24:3201-16.
3. Barbera G, Cullotta S, 2014. The Halaesa landscape (III B.C.) an ancient example of the complex and bio-diverse traditional Mediterranean polycultural landscape. Landsc. Hist. 35:2:53-66.
4. Barker G, Lloyd J, 1991. Roman landscapes — archaeological survey in the Mediterranean region (archaeological monographs of the British School at Rome II). London, UK: British School in Rome.
5. Barry, B, 2010. Techniques of Close Reading. Los Angeles, SAGE.
Cited by
2 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献