PaTHS - Pastoral Tracks Heading South: The evolution of the droveways (tratturi) in Central-Southern Italy

Pathhs（向南走的田园小径：意大利中南部畜道（tratturi）的演变）将促进一种创新的跨学科方法，以了解季节性放牧及其流动路线如何长期塑造地中海景观的特征。季节性转移放牧是一种放牧方式，牲畜沿沿着指定的路径在夏季和冬季牧场之间季节性移动。南欧游牧的长期演变产生了田园景观，其特点是独特的生态系统和连接田园地点的畜道网络。如今，游牧的历史景观是重要的经济、生态和文化资产，地方政府和国际组织正在推动其可持续管理。该项目将重点关注意大利中南部，那里历史悠久的游牧网络包括约3,000公里的标志性畜道（tratturi），自新石器时代早期（公元前6世纪）以来，那里的畜牧活动就有记载。据我们所知，从来没有使用考古方法直接调查过畜栏。此外，放牧路线与更广泛的考古和历史景观之间的相互关系很少得到系统的分析。我们的目标是填补这一知识空白。通过结合景观考古学，景观历史，民族考古学，地球科学，古植物学和地理空间分析，PathHS将揭示tratturi的历史以及田园景观和环境的演变，以促进良好的管理实践并为未来的政策提供信息。

PaTHS (Pastoral Tracks Heading South: The evolution of the droveways (tratturi) in Central-Southern Italy) will promote an innovative trans-disciplinary approach to understand how transhumance and its mobility routes shaped the character of Mediterranean landscapes in the long term. Transhumance is a type of pastoralism entailing a seasonal movement of livestock between summer and winter pastures along designated trails. The long evolution of transhumance in Southern Europe generated pastoral landscapes, characterised by unique ecosystems and networks of droveways connecting pastoral sites. Today, the historic landscapes of transhumance are key economic, ecological, and cultural assets, and their sustainable management is promoted by local governments and international organisations. The project will focus on Central-Southern Italy, where the historic transhumance network included about 3,000 km of iconic droveways (tratturi) and where pastoral activities are documented since the Early Neolithic (6th mill BC). To the best of our knowledge, droveways have never been directly investigated using archaeological methods. Furthermore, the correlations between pastoral routes and the wider archaeological and historic landscape have rarely been systematically analysed. The goal of PaTHS is to fill this knowledge gap. By combining landscape archaeology, landscape history, ethnoarchaeology, geosciences, palaeobotany and geospatial analysis, PaTHS will unravel the history of tratturi and the evolution of pastoral landscapes and environments, to promote good management practices and inform future policies.