A Tuscan Tale: Investigating Changes in Landscape Use Through Local Environmental Knowledge

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Building upon its community-based mission, and goals to bridge cultural and ecological heritage across a deep time perspective, the Potentino Exploration Project (PXP) conducted community-based participatory research in the Seggiano basin (2023-2024). These ethnographic discussions (University of Cambridge’s Participatory Research programme) took place in local homes surrounding our archaeological excavation to facilitate intergenerational dialogue around environmental change. Two major focuses were 1. understanding historical ecology as experienced by members of the community, and 2. communities’ relationship to traditional agricultural practices through time. This study aims to bolster local heritage revitalization through documenting oral histories and local resilience strategies in the face of climate change. Our future work plans to expand to the surrounding communities of Seggiano to collect local environmental knowledge, document changes in landscape through time, and create a space for shared experiences of ecological change within intergenerational memory. This study of contemporary communities surrounding PXP’s archaeological excavation is one of PXP’s strategies to leverage academic resources to support the local community’s well-being. The longer-term outcomes of this participatory research could provide crucial support for regional decision makers regarding policies concerning biodiversity and sustainable agricultural practices that could offer communities climate impact-related relief and strengthened means of heritage preservation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53914