Agricultural terraces in the Mediterranean. Medieval intensification revealed by OSL profiling and dating

The history of agricultural terraces remains poorly understood due to problems in dating their construction and use. This has hampered broader research on their significance, limiting knowledge of past agricultural practices and the long-term investment choices of rural communities. The authors appl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Turner, Sam, Sánchez Pardo, José Carlos, Turner, Alex
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC)
Repositorio:Minerva. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:minerva.usc.gal:10347/38763
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38763
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Mediterranean
Landscape archaeology
Agricultural terraces
OSL-PD
Descripción
Sumario:The history of agricultural terraces remains poorly understood due to problems in dating their construction and use. This has hampered broader research on their significance, limiting knowledge of past agricultural practices and the long-term investment choices of rural communities. The authors apply OSL profiling and dating to the sediments associated with agricultural terraces across the Mediterranean region to date their construction and use. Results from five widely dispersed case studies reveal that although many terraces were used in the first millennium AD, the most intensive episodes of terrace-building occurred during the later Middle Ages (c. AD 1100–1600). This innovative approach provides the first large-scale evidence for both the longevity and medieval intensification of Mediterranean terraces.