Bioarchaeological approaches to understanding the long-term development of mountain societies

TY - JOUR

T1 - Bioarchaeological approaches to understanding the long-term development of mountain societies

AU - Walsh, Kevin

AU - Knockaert, Juliette

AU - Dulias, Katharina

AU - Giguet-Covex, Charline

AU - Unsain, Dianne

AU - Burri, Sylvain

AU - Magniez, Pierre

AU - Pike, Alistair

AU - Orton, David

AU - Mocci, Florence

N1 - © The Author(s) 2023

PY - 2023/12/1

Y1 - 2023/12/1

N2 - Archaeologists do not always differentiate between human activities, practices and techniques within landscape archaeology. This problem is reflected in some research into the development of pastoralism in the Alps. Here, we develop a framework within a “position paper” that engages with these different processes by assessing recent developments in bioarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental methods. Over the last two decades, alpine research has moved beyond the mere characterisation of human activities toward the classification and interpretation of specific practices and techniques, changing how we study the development of alpine pastoralism. Research into the development of mid-/long-distance transhumance from the Provencal plains to the Western Alps has generated considerable interest over the last 20 years. Therefore, the PATHWAy (Pastoralism, TransHumance in the Western Alps) project focuses on studying the Iron Age to Medieval pastoral systems in the Western Alps and south-eastern France, which is today one of the main regions in Europe where transhumant pastoralism still takes place. Finally, this contribution aims to review how bioarchaeological methods, combined with “cultural” archaeology, inform detailed quotidian aspects of lifeways rather than impactful, mediatised generalising statements, such as mass population movements or simplistic generalisations about past diet.

AB - Archaeologists do not always differentiate between human activities, practices and techniques within landscape archaeology. This problem is reflected in some research into the development of pastoralism in the Alps. Here, we develop a framework within a “position paper” that engages with these different processes by assessing recent developments in bioarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental methods. Over the last two decades, alpine research has moved beyond the mere characterisation of human activities toward the classification and interpretation of specific practices and techniques, changing how we study the development of alpine pastoralism. Research into the development of mid-/long-distance transhumance from the Provencal plains to the Western Alps has generated considerable interest over the last 20 years. Therefore, the PATHWAy (Pastoralism, TransHumance in the Western Alps) project focuses on studying the Iron Age to Medieval pastoral systems in the Western Alps and south-eastern France, which is today one of the main regions in Europe where transhumant pastoralism still takes place. Finally, this contribution aims to review how bioarchaeological methods, combined with “cultural” archaeology, inform detailed quotidian aspects of lifeways rather than impactful, mediatised generalising statements, such as mass population movements or simplistic generalisations about past diet.

KW - Bioarchaeology

KW - Alps

KW - landscape archaeology

KW - sedimentary dna

KW - Isotope analysis

KW - pastoralism

U2 - 10.1007/s12520-023-01889-z

DO - 10.1007/s12520-023-01889-z

M3 - Article

SN - 1866-9565

VL - 15

JO - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

JF - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

IS - 12

M1 - 199

ER -