Landscape Archaeology Research Group - GIAP

Join us at the next
🗓️24th April, at 12 pm CEST (UTC+2).

This new GIAP seminar will be conducted by Dr Margarita Fernández Mier, Full Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oviedo (Spain).

Access the webinar here: https://bit.ly/3G7kt3M

📢📢 Call for abstracts now open!

Our colleague Dr Valentina Pescini is co-organizing the Session 2C, “Tracing Back Historical Land-Use and its Legacies: Common Insights and Perspectives of Landscape Archaeology and Historical Landscape Ecology”, that will be conducted during the celebration of the «European Landscape Ecology Congress. Landscape Perspective in a Rapidly Changing World (IALE 2025)».

Don't miss the opportunity and send your proposal following the link bellow! 👇👇

https://iale2025.sav.sk/practicalities/call-for-abstracts/

You have until 14th March to do it!

Enjoy this fascinating session in the city of ( ), the Beauty on the Danube!

For more detailed information:

https://giap.icac.cat/2025/03/04/call-for-papers-tracing-back-historical-land-use-and-its-legacies-common-insights-and-perspectives-of-landscape-archaeology-and-historical-landscape-ecology/

📣New paper publication: Tracing the history of a Mediterranean terraced landscape: interdisciplinary research in the Cinque Terre coastal region (NW Italy)

The paper by Pescini, V., Panetta, A., Menozzi, B.I., Montanari, C. discusses the latest results of the “5 Terre Environmental Resource Archaeology (5T.ERA)” project, by combining archaeological-stratigraphic evidence, pollen and Non-Pollen Palynomorphs (NPPs) analysis, radiocarbon dating, topographical surveys and historical sources.

Free access to the paper will be available until 15/03/2025
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618225000138?dgcid=author

Join us at the next
Online and open
Access the webinar here: http://bit.ly/3ExYwKm
🗓️19/02 12h CET

"Urban animals: zooarchaeological and isotopic insights into urbanisation", by Dr Angela Trentacoste (British School at Rome)

📣A new book chapter by the Archaeozoology team of GIAP-ICAC offers the first compilation on livestock practices in Roman Iberia

We are happy to announce the publication of a new book chapter on animal husbandry during Roman times in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, entitled “La ramaderia durant l’època romana al nord‑est peninsular: alguns exemples i reflexions”. This is the first compilation regarding this topic. The book chapter is published in “Bouzas et al. (2024). Ager Mutabilis. L’explotació del territori en època romana. Studies of the Roman World in the Roman period 13, 138-160. Museu Arqueològic de Banyoles-Ajuntament de Banyoles, Universitat de Girona, Grup de Recerca Arqueològica del Pla de l’Estany. Girona.”, the conference proceedings of the International Congress conducted in 18th-19th May 2023 (Calonge i Sant Antoni, Baix Empordà, Catalonia).

This book chapter is the result of the keynote made by Dr Lídia Colominas done for the “Animal husbandry exploitation” session.

📣New paper publication: Woodlands, tree management, and fuel economy in Bronze Age eastern Crete: An anthracological approach

A new paper on Bronze Age plant resources is now published in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports! The paper discusses a large anthracological dataset from Bronze Age East Crete and provides significant insights into natural resource management and its repercussions on economic activity and social structures of the period. It contributes a thorough understanding of the creation of the cultural landscape and the intricacies of how Bronze Age urban centres managed their territories.

Link here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X25000422?dgcid=coauthor

📣Experimental cultivations of wheat: sowing the seeds to strengthen and extend our new methodology in archeobotany

On the 20th and 21st of this past December, the sowing of the seeds of free-threshing wheat was completed successfully for yet another year of experimental cultivations at the premises of ELGO-DIMITRA at Thermi (Thessaloniki, Greece). The agronomic team of the project are constantly monitoring the growth conditions of the seeds and the state of the fields. Triticum aestivum and Triticum durum wheat are grown in 3 replicates in controlled wet and dry conditions and under three different manuring regimes.

The ongoing collaboration of Dr Livarda and her team with the agronomers Drs Mylonas and Ninou within the framework of the I+D project ‘DarkAegean’ (PID2022-139907NB-I00) has already resulted in one successful harvest of wheat this last September, which is currently under processing. The ultimate aim of the DarkAegean project is to use the experimentally cultivated wheat data to feed and expand the development of a new methodology that involves machine learning-aided 3D GMM for the investigation of agriculture in the past.

📣A new open-access article by the Archaezoology team of the GIAP-ICAC sheds light on feeding strategies in the Iron Age Iberian Peninsula

We are glad to announce the publication of a new open access paper on animal husbandry and feeding strategies in the Iron Age Iberian Peninsula. This study provides first order information about this topic using a multi-isotope analysis.

Dr Chiara Messana, Dr Carlos Tornero, and Dr Lídia Colominas. 2025. Beyond the herd: investigating livestock feeding strategies in the Iron Age Iberian Peninsula (3rd c. BC) through a multi‑isotope analysis.

Link here:

Beyond the herd: investigating livestock feeding strategies in the Iron Age Iberian Peninsula (3rd c. BC) through a multi-isotope analysis - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences During the Iron Age, north-eastern Iberian communities relied on crop cultivation and animal husbandry for their subsistence. The latter was mainly focused on caprine, with sheep being prominent due to their suitability to the Mediterranean climate, orography, and environment. Despite the pivotal ro...

📣We are pleased to announce the publication of the first book dedicated to Urban Geoarchaeology, to which Alfredo Mayoral contributes the first chapter!

Alfr­edo Mayoral, Jean-François Berger, Jean-Luc Peiry, Paul Ledger, Yannick Miras. 2024. “Geoarchaeological analysis of pedosedimentary archives from site-environment interfaces: reconstructing palaeoenvironmental impacts of protohistoric settlements and towns at Corent (France)”, In Q. Bordier and F. Salomon (ed.): Urban Geoarchaeology. CNRS Editions. Pp: 31-50.

More information and link to the book here: https://www.cnrseditions.fr/catalogue/ecologie-environnement-sciences-de-la-terre/urban-geoarchaeology/

📣2nd Year of experimental cultivations of free-threshing wheat: archaeobotanical and agronomic synergies!!

At the end of November, Dr Alexandra Livarda, the PI of the I+D project ‘DarkAegean’ The agricultural economy of the Aegean ‘Dark Ages’ through machine learning-powered 3D cereal grain morphometrics (PID2022-139907NB-I00) visited the collaborating team of agronomers led by Dr Ioannis Mylonas at Thermi Thessalonikis, Greece. The researchers visited the fields and revised the work on the new year of cultivations of free-threshing wheat at the facilities of ELGO-DIMITRA. This will be the second year of experimentally cultivating a series of free-threshing wheat landraces with different combinations of irrigation and manuring regimes towards the creation of a new methodological tool for the identification of agricultural regimes using the shape of grains with application to archaeology.

Dr Livarda and Dr Mylonas also had the chance to revise the new instruments bought this year for the measurements of the characteristics of the experimentally cultivated plants and their grains and, importantly, set the ‘seeds’ for the next phase of their collaboration!