Confronting Complexity: Interpretation of a Dry Stone Walled Landscape on the Island of Cres, Croatia

Michael Doneus (), Nives Doneus and Dave Cowley
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Michael Doneus: Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, University of Vienna, Franz-Klein-Gasse 1, 1190 Vienna, Austria
Nives Doneus: Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS), University of Vienna, Franz-Klein-Gasse 1, 1190 Vienna, Austria
Dave Cowley: Historic Environment Scotland, John Sinclair House, 16 Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh EH8 9NX, UK

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-43

Abstract: Dry stone walls are a worldwide phenomenon that may shape entire regions. As a specific form of vernacular agro-pastoral practice, they are expressions of the culture and history of a region. Dry stone walls have recently received increased attention in Croatia, primarily due to research in landscape architecture and (historical) geography, though archaeological research on such remains is rare in part due to the challenges of undertaking such work in areas covered by dense evergreen maquis vegetation. In this paper, this type of landscape has been studied in detail for the first time using Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) based digital feature models as a basis to articulate dynamic dry stone wall landscapes in a diachronic archaeological interpretation. Using a case study from the Mediterranean region of Punta Križa, Croatia, we show that what superficially appears to be a simple system of dry stone walls contains a wealth of information on a complex sequence of human activity. The systematic, detailed, and diachronic interpretation applies a transparent workflow that provides a tool for all those undertaking interpretative mappings of archaeological prospection datasets and has proved highly effective when working with ALS-derived visualizations. The capacity to develop spatio-temporal interpretation within the framework of GIS and a Harris Matrix is especially powerful and has the potential to change our image of any region. While the case study presented here deals with a small area in Croatia, the methods described have a broad application in any areas of complex landscape remains.

Keywords: ALS; LiDAR; interpretation; stratigraphy; Croatian heritage; dry stone walls; landscape archaeology; retrogressive landscape analysis; Roman land division (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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