Continuity and discontinuity in the history of upland pastoral landscapes: the case study of Val Molinac and Val Poré (Val di Sole, Trentino, Eastern Italian Alps)

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of the formation and evolution of upland rural Alpine landscapes. The case study presented here refers to two upland valleys—Val Molinac and Val Poré—located in the Alpine region of Trentino (Italy). Archaeological fieldwork in the area has revealed a complex landscape; the main features of which are dry stone structures (enclosures, huts and rock shelters), mainly related to pastoralism. Archaeological data and documentary sources show that the investigated landscape underwent distinct formative phases or ‘tipping points’—in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries AD and in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries AD—and suggest that its evolution has neither been gradual nor incremental, as generally assumed. ‘Punctuated equilibrium paradigm’, derived from evolutionary theory, is applied to address the discontinuous evolution of the upland landscapes of Val Molinac and Val Poré, and theoretical implications for the study of rural landscapes are discussed.

Keywords:

• Alps
• pastoral landscapes
• landscape evolution
• punctuated equilibrium theory

Acknowledgements

This paper was written in the context of the ALPES project (‘Alpine Landscapes: Pastoralism and Environment of Val di Sole’). The project is co-directed by the authors, is carried out with the collaboration of the Ufficio Beni Archeologici, Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali of the autonomous province of Trento and has been funded by the Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia of the University of Trento, the GAL (Gruppo Azione Locale) of Val di Sole and the Terre Alte programme of CAI (Club Alpino Italiano), with the logistical support of the municipality of Mezzana. The authors would like to thank all the people who took part in fieldwork and research, among them Federica Dell’Amore, Beata Marcinik, Matteo Rapanà, Giordana Anesi and Teresa Medici. The authors are grateful to Patrick Gleeson, who read a draft of this paper and provided useful advice, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

Notes

1. The height of land features and anthropic structures is reported here as altitude above mean sea level of the Mediterranean sea and not as elevation above the theoretical equipotential surface of the WGS84 ellipsoid, as the latter figure may differ substantially from the former in upland areas.

2. Anthropic features were named according to the ‘ALPES’ project standard classification, as there is no direct relationship between structures and local land names. The label reads as follows: capital letters indicate the municipality in which the feature is found (e.g. MZ = Mezzana); three-digit figures refer to the serial number given to the feature; and last capital letter denotes the type of feature (e.g. S = dry stone structure).