Land Use and Long-term Sustainability on a Mediterranean Landscape: An Archaeological Case Study in the Lower Alentejo of Portugal

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，詹姆斯·L.布恩和一个团队的同事将进行考古和地貌研究的两个领域的季节到人口增长和土地利用战略的变化对农业生产的可持续性在地中海景观的影响在罗马和伊斯兰时期（公元450年至1250年）在葡萄牙南部的下阿连特茹。 PI先前在这一地区开展的工作表明，在公元世纪晚期罗马对该地区的控制解体后不久，具有中世纪特征的小村庄和村庄开始出现在相对优质的土壤上，并在前罗马村庄附近。 在接下来的500年里，在公元711年穆斯林入侵后建立伊斯兰文化的过程中，定居点的密度比罗马时期增加了8倍。 在公元1248年基督徒收复该地区之后，该地区几乎完全被遗弃，直到16世纪初，当它以低得多的定居密度重新被占领时。在随后的中世纪晚期和现代时期，定居点的总面积从未超过伊斯兰时期的三分之一。我们提出的问题与这项研究是：什么样的社会组织和土地利用战略支持高人口密度的农业和畜牧业在该地区在伊斯兰时期？ 这些土地使用战略改变当地环境的过程是什么，从长远来看是否可持续？ 世纪收复失地运动之后，定居点中断的原因是什么？ 该项目将包括两个为期八周的实地考察季节。 第一个季节将专门对研究区域的一个8X8公里区域进行考古现场调查。 这将补充我们以前所做的工作，将调查数据库扩展到具有不同地形、土壤特征和现代土地使用实践的地区。 结合现场调查数据将使我们能够记录在罗马和伊斯兰时期后期定居点的增长和下降。 第二个野外季节将致力于对罗马晚期和伊斯兰早期（约公元550 - 850年）遗址的有限挖掘，这一时期在考古学和历史学上仍然知之甚少。 通过这两个领域的季节，我们将进行地貌和古环境调查，旨在记录景观的变化和人为过程，使他们。 这一综合研究计划将阐明农村社会和经济组织以及人为（即人为造成的）环境变化及其之间的联系。 通过采取长期的观点，我们将能够探索人类与地中海景观之间持续的递归互动。 因此，随着人口继续增长，对地中海区域和整个地球仪干旱和半干旱环境的稀缺自然资源造成更大的压力，其结果将有助于从独特的扩展时间视角阐明许多紧迫的当代问题。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. James L. Boone and a team of colleagues will conduct a two field seasons of archaeological and geomorphological research into the effect of population growth and changes in land use strategies on the sustainability of agrarian production in a Mediterranean landscape during the Late Roman and Islamic periods (AD 450 to 1250) in the Lower Alentejo of southern Portugal. Previous work carried out by the PI in this area has shown that soon after the dissolution of Roman control of the region in the late 5th century AD, small hamlets and villages of a Medieval character began to appear on patches of relatively high quality soil and in the vicinity of former Roman villae. Over the next five hundred years, during the establishment of Islamic culture following the Muslim invasion of AD 711, settlement density increased eightfold over what had existed during the Roman period. Following the Christian reconquista in the region in AD 1248, the area was almost completely abandoned until the early 1500s, when it was reoccupied at a much lower settlement density. The total settlement area in the subsequent Late Medieval and Modern periods was never more than a third of what it had been during the Islamic period. The questions we ask with this research are: what kinds of social organization and land use strategies supported the high population densities of agriculturalists and pastoralists in the area during the Islamic period? What were processes by which these land use strategies altered the local environment and were they sustainable in the long term? What were the causes of the settlement hiatus following the Reconquista in the 13th century? The project will involve two eight-week seasons of fieldwork. The first season will be devoted to an archaeological site survey of an 8 X 8 km area in the study area. This will complement the previous work we have done by extending the survey database into an area with different topography, soil characteristics, and modern land-use practices. The combined site survey data will allow us to document settlement growth and decline during the Late Roman and Islamic periods. The second field season will be devoted to limited excavations of sites from the Late Roman and early Islamic period (circa AD 550-850), a time period that remains very poorly understood archaeologically and historically. Through both field seasons, we will conduct geomorphic and paleoenvironmental investigations aimed at documenting changes in the landscape and the anthropogenic processes that brought them about. This integrated program of research will illuminate rural social and economic organization and anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) environmental change and the connections between them. By adopting a long-term perspective, we will be able to explore the ongoing recursive interaction between humans and the Mediterranean landscape. As such, the result will be pertinent to illuminating many pressing contemporary issues from a uniquely expanded temporal perspective, as populations continue to grow and place greater pressures on the scarce natural resources of arid and semi-arid environments in the Mediterranean region and across the globe.