Defining, Constructing, Inhabiting Rural Spaces: Materials, settlements, landscapes and interactions in Eastern Liguria and Cerdagne (French Pyrenees) between 19th and 20th centuries

Studies on rural landscapes, as well as the historic-archaeological interest towards how rural societies have changed and developed over the Modern period and the recent past have increased over the last two to three decades for most European contexts. Moreover, research on the management of resources is growing within the archaeological disciplines, particularly for the medieval and post-medieval period. This analysis compares different contexts, through a (building/rural) archaeological and a social micro-historical approach, to grasp the dynamics around the negotiations, redefinition of spaces and access rights from a local point of view, while relating it to broader processes of urbanisation, industrialisation and rationalisation of agricultural productivity. This work looks at a settlement, Colanesi, located on the hillsides of Monte Fasce (Genoa, IT), an area often considered marginal, where most of the present structures are now abandoned. The settlement has been studied through a combination of different sources - archival, archaeological, - oral interviews. The study considers the Montagna di Fascia area - encompassing the settlement - a historical territorial unit characterised by the presence of common lands and a combination of agro-silvo-pastoral activities throughout the Modern Age, to contextualise its role and the function of its structure. While Colanesi is remembered as a seasonal settlement for cattle by the local community, the material modifications suggest an intense use, drawing a different picture about the settlement itself, as well as questioning how the terms seasonal and permanent are applied within the study of such contexts. The second case study concerns the farmhouse of Mas Rondole, Saillagouse, in Cerdagne (FR). Here, changes that formed the present farmhouse structure took place over the course of the 19th century. The study observes the material evidence of these profound changes and how they should be considered within the Europe-wide push towards rationalisation of agricultural productivity, largely endorsed by the landowning elite across the French countryside and upland regions. The specificity of Mas Rondole, however, is its location within an area characterised by the presence of common lands and collective property, which played a role in how – also within private estates – environmental resources were managed. This work discusses the late 19th century, widely considered a time of industrial growth imposing itself on most rural contexts across European countries and prompting their increasing abandonment, by combining different sources and observing some of the processes mentioned above through a local lens. While the effects of broader changes onto smaller contexts and societies are undeniable, technological modifications, shifting practices are rarely following a one-way process, but incorporate and draw together past and current actions, social interactions and technological knowledge, which remain in a dialectical relationship throughout. The study aims at providing a new historical depth to practices and interactions taking place over the course of the 19th century, considering how material traces, and the built environment, with its functions, arrangements, its role within social interactions, can enhance the understanding of that very relationship. Such elements allow to delve into questions about rural heritage and the study of areas, which have been considered marginal, perhaps because “non-urban”. The discussion hence aims at prompting a critical debate around heritagisation processes within post-medieval and recent rural contexts in Europe. Indeed, it studies the historical specificity of changes affecting mountain and rural societies, social groups, settlements and material culture, which may have been far more interconnected with diverse and farther contexts than how they are considered to be, through commercial, familial, social and political ties and interests.