Challenges and benefits in modelling ancient landscapes complexity through resilience and antifragility. RELOAD: a project on liminality in Northern Tuscany

Valentina Limina

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 2024, 35.2, 311-322; doi: 10.19282/ac.35.2.2024.33

Abstract

RELOAD intends to re-evaluate the marginal areas of northern Tuscany to demonstrate their central role in the dynamics of management and perception of space between the Roman conquest and late antiquity. Considering that landscape archaeology, complemented by an anthropological perspective, allows a deep understanding of the linked dynamics of social and ecological systems, the project is expected to fill a gap of knowledge about ancient landscapes in northern Tuscany analyzing the case of Volterra to provide innovative interpretative models through a multidisciplinary methodological approach and a diachronic perspective. Integrating all available sources with new data collection, RELOAD approaches landscape complexity in a flexible way. Introducing for the first time in archaeology the concept of ‘antifragility’, RELOAD engages in the wider debate about adopting concepts and techniques from different fields for archaeological and historical reconstruction. The paper presents the project and preliminary data regarding the challenges and the potential benefits of applying agent-based model simulations to test the validity of approaching the past through the lens of ‘resilience’ or ‘antifragility’ leading to alternative reconstructions of the human-environmental interactions.

Figures

Preview