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Project

Approaching patterns of nature-society interactions in regional development. An interdisciplinary dialogue between past and present in the region of Sagalassos.

The project wishes to initiate an innovative dialogue between archaeology, ecology, geography and planning studies in the region of Sagalassos (SW Turkey). The purpose is to investigate diachronic co-evolution of society and nature and tie the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project to a parcours of sustainable regional development.

In regards to the past, the applicants wish to contribute to debates in social and regional archaeology, by applying an innovative interdisciplinary research strategy. In geographical terms, the research radiates from Düzen Tepe/Sagalassos/Ağlasun, as central places, into the adjoining valleys. In chronological terms, the applicants opt to study and compare key-moments of societal decline and reconversion, according to a long-term view, in this case represented by the period from Archaic (from the 6th c. BC) to Ottoman times (until 1922). The intention is to investigate changes in subsistence strategies and community building in the research area during periods of stress on social patterns, and to evaluate how nature-society interactions sustained and/or limited the emergence of new local communities. The accompanying archaeological fieldwork will be framed by an interdisciplinary research agenda focusing on changes in food production and diet, technology, and forest and land use management, with the aim of understanding social relations in consecutive small-scale, local communities. Theoretic and methodological enrichment in approaching the study of these communities is expected from confrontation with models and concepts of social and sustainable regional development as developed by the fields of ecology, geography and planning studies.

In regards to the present, the aim is to first better understand processes that guide the development of regions and foster theoretical development in ecology, geography and planning. Theoretical enrichment is expected to result from confrontation with the interdisciplinary archaeological study of long-term regional development processes around Düzen Tepe/Sagalassos/ Ağlasun. For instance, geography and planning, thus far, have largely limited their scope to regional development in proto-industrial and contemporary capitalist societies. The long-term view of this project will help to disclose crucial elements of path-dependent (i.e. historically rooted) development of a regional nature-culture nexus (understood as the locally particular, fine-grained institutionalisation of ‘ways of dealing with the natural environment’, including cultural practices, norms and values as well as organisational structures). An analysis of the social, cultural, political, economic, ecological and environmental regulation of regional development in the different pre-capitalist societies forming part of the long-term chronological focus of this proposal will also provide fruitful insights in alternative, potentially more sustainable pathways of regional development for the future. Second, by also incorporating insights from sustainable tourism research, governance of socio-ecological systems, cultural resource management and natural resource modelling, these analyses will serve as a basis for the development of planning how the Sagalassos region will build upon the cultural and natural assets available in the region, in particular those produced by the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project. This should allow for the development of a methodology for cultural resource management that can also inspire other archaeological projects in contributing to sustainable regional development.

Date:1 Oct 2012 →  30 Sep 2017
Keywords:Sagalassos
Disciplines:Archaeology, Theory and methodology of archaeology, Other history and archaeology