A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to the Study of Transhumance as Territorial Identity Factor in a Long-Term Perspective: The TRATTO Project - Southern Tuscany Paths and Pastures from Prehistory to the Modern Age

A cross- disciplinary approach to the study of transhumance as territorial identity factor in a long term perspective: the Tratto Project – Southern Tuscany paths and pastures from prehistory to the Modern Age. The paper presents a project related to the study of transhumance's paths and pastures in Southern Tuscany in a long-term perspective, from Prehistory to the Modern Age, in collaboration with the École française of Rome. TRATTO is the first project focused on the features of Tuscan transhumance as paths and pasturages with a cross-disciplinary approach (geographers, archaeologists and historians) and using a strong GIS structure for analyses and data-gathering. The information from literature, primary and cartographic sources, material culture, paleoenvironmental data will be integrated in a unique system and analyzed through different procedures,including predicting and postdicting analyses. The aim is reconstructing the transhumance's paths and the grazing land use in some case-study areas, understanding and explaining its different factors of influence and their role in the formation of territorial identities and landscape. The project is at its early stage, consequently we focus on critical questions and methodological problems necessary to carry on our goals.