Approaching the Big History from an upland valley in the Cantabrian Mountains (NW Spain): Transhumance systems and global processes during the last 500 years

Summary

This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Cantabrian Mountains in northwestern Spain have been exploited by pastoralist groups since Late Prehistory (ca. 6000 BP), thereby shaping these landscapes in the longue durée. The anthropogenic pressure on the environment resulted in the transformation of upland areas, with forests being cleared to create seasonal pastures and forestry and mineral resources being exploited; landscapes were experienced by communities in connection with their beliefs and socio-political contexts. Despite prevailing views of mountains as wild, distant, or marginal areas remote from the centres of historical inquiry, our archaeological research in Babia (León, Spain) illustrates how these areas can also illuminate global processes such as modernization, world trade, and human adaptation to climate change. This paper examines the relations between transhumance systems in this remote mountainous area of Iberia and global processes such as colonialism, economic globalization, industrialization, and the rural decline in modern and contemporary times. To this end, changes and continuities in settlement patterns, the scale of herding production, and seasonal modes of transhumance are evaluated through the archaeological record to inform our long-term interpretations of land management, the dynamics of political relations among diverse social actors, and the scale of integration of this region within global historical trends.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52746