Canal-U

Spatial modeling approach of summer pasture grazing walks / Mélanie Le Couédic

Spatial modeling approach of summer pasture grazing walks in an ethnoarchaeological perspective : a pyrenean case study. M. LE COUEDIC (Laboratoire LAT, CITERES, Université François Rabelais, Tours). Deuxième International Workshop on archaeology of european mountain landscape, organisé par les laboratoires GEODE, FRAMESPA, GEOLAB et Chrono-Environnement. Université Toulouse 2-Le Mirail, 8-11 octobre 2009. [Première journée].

Pyrenean summer pastures are mostly a collective resource, used by rural communities of the upper valleys. On a large scale, territorial divisions of these mountains summer pastures are mainly defined by the practice from the shepherd’s huts as the livestock is grazing. To consider these practices and partitions at different periods, based on the pastoral sites documented by archeology, this ethnoarchaeological study aims at understanding the physical and social determinants of herd walks,as well as their material correlates in a spatial perspective. The Pyrenean National Park conducted territory mapping of existing herd walks in the Western Pyrenean summer mountains enables the study of the morphology of these territories according to pastora systems (type of livestock, production, cattle keeping, number of heads) and in terms of environment (orography and vegetation). Then, these territories have borders of various kinds: discontinuous and tight in certain areas, blurred and tangled in others. These variations could show differences in grazing pressure or mode of sharing and access to these areas. Unravel these variations and tackle the physical correlates of walks request to consider these areas on a daily scale, from the huts. From this perspective, the mapping of the Park has been refined by ethnological surveys in the valleys of Ossau and Aspe. These divisions and these areas of cospatiality can thus be understood thanks to the spatial distribution of the huts and with a widening of the perspective to the territorial structuring on valleys scale.