Vegetation series as a marker of interactions between rural settlements and landscape: new insights from the archaeological record in Western Sicily

Abstract

Plant communities are complex and dynamic elements of the landscape, intertwined with both natural factors and human activities. Vegetation series reflect the environmental characteristics of the landscape, but also the anthropic impact, one of the exogenous forces that most profoundly affects the landscape formation process. This paper aims to investigate the interactions between long-term human settlement catchment areas and vegetation series. The case study area of the Sicani Mountains (Central-Western Sicily) proved to be an ideal place to perform GIS-based spatial analysis in order to compare a data set of rural archaeological sites and land units created through the mapping of vegetation series. The existence of a causal link between vegetation series and human settlement patterns allows us, as well as future researchers, to find new explanations for the formation of the multifaceted Mediterranean rural landscape.