This book studies current approaches to the archaeology of mountainous landscapes, presenting research results from different scientific contexts. To discuss these issues, and to study different aspects of human activity in the mountains and adjacent regions it incorporates archaeological, botanical, zooarchaeological and ethnological information.

Mountains contain a rich and diverse set of remnants left by human societies. They have been inhabited since prehistory and have been transformed by human activity during prehistorical and historical times, and that history defines mountain landscapes as we know them today. Archaeology of Mountain Landscapes contains twenty contributions by forty-one specialists currently researching mountain areas in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The different case studies address the subject diachronically, ranging from prehistory to modern times, and employ a variety of methodological strategies, including archaeological surveys and excavation, paleoenvironmental studies, and historical and ethnographical research. This volume demonstrates how multidisciplinary archaeological fieldwork is radically changing our vision of mountain landscapes. Viewing mountain landscapes as archaeological documents contributes to our understanding of the history of mountain environments and offers new archaeological datasets to use in the interpretation of human societies. Taken together, the essays collected here offer a comprehensive view of current research and suggest new directions for future study.

Il numero 35.1, 2024 di Archeologia e Calcolatori è un volume ricco e articolato che contiene tre sezioni speciali e un gruppo di 15 contributi dedicati all’applicazione delle più attuali tecnologie informatiche nei diversi settori della ricerca archeologica, in cui si nota una crescente attenzione verso il dato visuale e la modellazione virtuale. La prima sezione, curata da G. Gambacurta e F. Bortolami, è dedicata agli Atti del workshop (Venezia 25 settembre 2023) “Necropoli etrusco-italiche: archeologia digitale e paesaggio funerario”, che offrono un interessante focus sul tema della ricostruzione del paesaggio funerario attraverso le nuove tecnologie, presentando alcuni significativi casi di studio. La seconda sezione è curata da V. Fromageot-Laniepce e A.V. Szabados e tratta di “Images antiques et humanités numériques”, tematica particolarmente fertile negli studi della scuola francese. La sezione, in particolare, riferisce i risultati dei seminari ArcheoNum, organizzati dall’equipe CNRS-ArScAn con l’obiettivo di creare uno spazio di dialogo sulle questioni dell’archeologia e del patrimonio culturale digitali. La terza sezione, curata da A. Caravale. P. Moscati e I. Rossi, chiude il volume, pubblicando i primi risultati del lavoro di alcuni gruppi di ricerca impegnati nel Progetto PNRR H2IOSC, che mira a creare un cluster di Infrastrutture di Ricerca nei settori delle Scienze Umane, delle Tecnologie Linguistiche e dei Beni Culturali.

A cultural and literary history of mountains in classical antiquity The mountainous character of the Mediterranean was a crucial factor in the history of the ancient Greek and Roman world. The Folds of Olympus is a cultural and literary history that explores the important role mountains played in Greek and Roman religious, military, and economic life, as well as in the identity of communities over a millennium—from Homer to the early Christian saints. Aimed at readers of ancient history and literature as well as those interested in mountains and the environment, the book offers a powerful account of the landscape at the heart of much Greek and Roman culture. Jason König charts the importance of mountains in religion and pilgrimage, the aesthetic vision of mountains in art and literature, the place of mountains in conquest and warfare, and representations of mountain life. He shows how mountains were central to the way in which the inhabitants of the ancient Mediterranean understood the boundaries between the divine and the human, and the limits of human knowledge and control. He also argues that there is more continuity than normally assumed between ancient descriptions of mountains and modern accounts of the picturesque and the sublime. Offering a unique perspective on the history of classical culture, The Folds of Olympus is also a resoundingly original contribution to the literature on mountains.

This book provides an overview of the driving theories, methodologies and main topics that have been addressed to date regarding agrarian archaeology. The text is presented as an introduction for students, a critical reading guide for other scholars, and an informative instrument aimed at a wide audience.

Up until now, mountain ecosystems have not been closely studies by social scientists as they do not offer a readily defined set of problems for human exploitation as, do for instance, tropical forests or arctic habitats. But the archaeological evidence had shown that humans have been living in this type of habitat for thousands of year. From this evidence we can also see that mountainous regions are often frontier zones of competing polities and form refuge areas for dissident communities as they often are inherently difficult to control by centralized authorities. As a consequence they fuel or contribute disproportionately to political violence. But we are now witnessing changes and increasing vulnerability of mountain ecosystems caused by human activities. Human adaptability to mountain ecosystems This volume presents an international and interdisciplinary account of the exploitation of--and human adaptation to--mountainous regions over time. The contributions discuss human cultural responses to key physical and cultural stressors associated with mountain ecosystems, such as aridity, quality of soils, steep slopes, low productivity, as well as transient phenomena such as changing weather patterns, deforestation and erosion, and the possible effects of climate change. This volume will be of interest to anthropologists, ecologists and geologists as mountainous landscapes change fast and cultures disappear and they need to be recorded, and mountain regions are of interest for studies on environmental change and cultural responses of mountain populations provide clues for us all. Critical to understanding mountain adaptations is our comprehension of human decision-making and how people view short- and long-term outcomes.

Reviews the palaeoenvironmental evidence and its incorporation with landscape archaeology across the Mediterranean, from the Early Neolithic to the end of the Roman period.

This book compiles available knowledge of the response of mountain ecosystems to recent climate and land use change and intends to bridge the gap between science, policy and the community concerned. The chapters present key concepts, major drivers and key processes of mountain response, providing transdisciplinary orientation to mountain studies incorporating experiences of academics, community leaders and policy-makers from developed and less developed countries. The book chapters are arranged in two sections. The first section concerns the response processes of mountain environments to climate change. This section addresses climate change itself (past, current and future changes of temperature and precipitation) and its impacts on the cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and human-environment systems. The second section focuses on the response processes of mountain environments to land use/land cover change. The case studies address effects of changing agriculture and pastoralism, forest/water resources management and urbanization processes, landscape management, and biodiversity conservation. The book is designed as an interdisciplinary publication which critically evaluates developments in mountains of the world with contributions from both social and natural sciences.

Over 80 archaeologists from four continents create a benchmark volume of the ideas and practices of landscape archaeology, covering the theoretical and the practical, the research and conservation, and encasing the term in a global framework.

Today, mountains are spaces for adventure: treasured places for people to connect with nature, encounter the sublime and challenge themselves, whether it be skiing in the Italian Alps or scaling the heights of the Matterhorn in Switzerland. Some regard our love of mountains as relatively new, claiming that before modern mountaineers planted flags upon the peaks, the average European was more likely to revile and avoid a mountainous landscape than to admire it. Mountains Before Mountaineering tells a different narrative. It reveals the way mountains inspired curiosity and fascination and how they were enjoyed in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. It gives voice to the early modern travellers who climbed peaks and passes with fear and delight; to the 'real mountaineers' who lived and died upon the mountain slopes; and to the scientists who used mountains to try to understand the origins of the world. This book invites you on a journey through the mountains, long before Everest was 'discovered' as the highest mountain in the world or before the first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc. It is the story of how our love of the mountains has been a part of us from the very beginning.