On 3rd March, a fieldwork was carried out within the study area of the Cinque Terre National Park (Corniglia, Vernazza, SP), in a terraced area planted with vines owned by the La Polenza. The inspection involved members of DISTAV and DAFIST of the Italian team of the IRIS project, led by Ivano Rellini and Anna Stagno, and also saw the participation of doctoral students and researchers of the Antigone project, of the municipal doctorate, of the CLOE project, of the TEMPA project.

This case study intends to analyse the history of the management systems of environmental resources and the slopes of the Cinque Terre on a geographical scale in detail, in the broader perspective of a study of the rural population of this area and of the historical phases of abandonment. In short, the aim of the research conducted in this area is to reconstruct the history of the terraces, understood not simply as walls built to obtain arable land, but as complex artefacts, an integrated system of wall structures, soils, waters and management practices. The methodologies used here in an interdisciplinary sense are on the one hand pedology and soil micromorphology, on the other hand rural and surface archaeology, with the study of a soil profile and the archaeological survey in the terraced area, and a first synthetic filtering cartography of the area.

The experience of the La Polenza farm also allows us to focus on how the current procedures for the functional recovery (agricultural and architectural) of abandoned areas but historically the scene of rural productions can go hand in hand (and benefit from) from a synergy with research.

Archaeologists taking soil samples

Archaeological survey inside La Polenza vineyard