Exploring the long-term anthropisation of the Cantabrian Mountains since later prehistory in Babia, León (NW Iberia)

Abstract

Higher mountains rising above the horizon generally conjure up ideas concerning wilderness and marginality. Indeed, uplands are still considered some of the last ‘natural landscapes’ in Europe, where anthropogenic transformations arrived later and more superficially than in the lowlands. However, recent archaeological investigations carried out in some European mountain ranges emphasise that alpine and subalpine grasslands in the shadow of the highest peaks are actually the result of long-term interactions between societies and the environment. In 2017, a pilot project started in the Cantabrian Mountains (north-west Iberia) aiming to identify past anthropogenic pressure on high-mountain areas and to assess the historical processes related to anthropisation in different chronological periods.