The Twentieth Century Invention of Ancient Mountains: The Archaeology of Highland Aspromonte

Autor: Hamish Forbes, Meredith S. Chesson, Lin Foxhall, Alfonso Picone Chiodo, John Robb, David Yoon, Paula Kay Lazrus, Kostalena Michelaki, Helen Foxhall-Forbes
Přispěvatelé: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository, Robb, John [0000-0002-7987-4549]
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: International journal of historical archaeology, 2021, Vol.25(1), pp.14-44 [Peer Reviewed Journal]
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
ISSN: 1573-7748
1092-7697
DOI: 10.1007/s10761-020-00543-x
Popis: Funder: National Endowment for the Humanities; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000103
The high mountains of the Mediterranean are often considered as refuges of ancient traditions, particularly of pastoralism and brigandage. Is this image true? This paper reports the first systematic archaeological research on Aspromonte, Southern Calabria. Archaeological, cartographic and air photo evidence suggests that people used the high mountains in all periods from the Neolithic onwards. However, early usage was low-intensity and probably for special purposes such as iron-smelting, charcoal-burning and logging; only in the Classical Greek period was there sustained effort at inhabiting higher areas. The real development of the mountains came in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the 1920s onwards, there were large-scale, state-fostered projects for economic exploitation of forests, political control of territory, and creation of a recreational landscape. These endeavors tied into modernist ideas of the state, as well as period concepts such as Alpinism and healthy outdoor recreation for city dwellers. Ironically, as soon as these modern efforts made the high mountains accessible, they were assigned a chronotope, and were reimagined as the exemplification of an ancient way of life.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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