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International borderland landscapes have a shared history through the movement of ideas, people, culture, and even conflict. Understanding the similarities and nuanced differences of temporal landscape change between frontiers requires approaches that can effectively detail and explain the territorial evolution of both countries. Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) is a valuable methodological tool originally used for landscape studies in the United Kingdom. Its application outside of Britain has been limited. In this pilot study, HLC is used in the Duero River borderland context of Spain and Portugal. It is a rural region with a common history, but it also presents new methodological challenges in the acquisition of source data and the creation of a typology that effectively characterises the region while also recognising the distinctiveness between nations. This research presents the development of the classes and broad types chosen for this analysis and demonstrates their diachronic evolution to the present. Navarra and support from the Institute for Advanced Social Science Research (I-COMMUNITAS). Additional financial support is from the project LOKI (Local Economies, Imperial Economy: Western Iberia (II B.C.-II A.D.)) [PID2019-104297GB-I00]. We are grateful for the support from Almudena Orejas of the Spanish National Research Council, Eloísa Ramírez of the Universidad Pública de Navarra, and Sam Turner, Alex Turner, and Niels Dabaut of Newcastle University.

The geoarchaeological study of site MZ051S (Val di Sole, Trentino, Italy), carried out by the project ALPES (Alpine Landscapes: Pastoralism and Environment of Val di Sole), is presented here as a case-study for reconstructing human occupation of the uplands in the central-eastern Alps in late Prehistory and understanding the relationships between human and natural dynamics in the past.The site, located in Val Porè, consists of a large dry-stone enclosure placed on a small, glacial plateau at 2240 m a.s.l. and has been dated to the early and middle Bronze Age.Between 2015 and 2019, archaeological excavations were carried out and, following an interdisciplinary approach, numerous data were collected in order to reconstruct site history and site formation, including data from palaeobotany, stratigraphy, soil science, and the analysis of cultural assemblages.Much importance was given to the geomorphological context and the deposit. The geoarchaeological and soil micromorphological study showed the presence of two buried soils, respectively dating to the ancient (2122-1773 and 1878-1693 cal BCE at 2σ) and middle (1750-1430 cal BCE at 2σ) Bronze Age. Both soils were buried by colluvial sediments deriving from slope dynamics. Although limited, the evidence recorded in the deposit, together with the results obtained from the distinct analyses, allow us to hypothesize that these processes could be determined by the human exploitation of the uplands. It can be argued that human occupation had a significant impact on the landscape since late Prehistory, revealing that the mountain environment is the result of complex interactions between anthropogenic and natural factors.

Fluvial environments represent complex human-water systems, as floodplains have always been among the most suitable environments for human subsistence. In this paper, we present one of the first at...

The history of agricultural terraces remains poorly understood due to problems in dating their construction and use. This has hampered broader research on their significance, limiting knowledge of past agricultural practices and the long-term investment choices of rural communities. The authors apply OSL profiling and dating to the sediments associated with agricultural terraces across the Mediterranean region to date their construction and use. Results from five widely dispersed case studies reveal that although many terraces were used in the first millennium AD, the most intensive episodes of terrace-building occurred during the later Middle Ages (c. AD 1100-1600). This innovative approach provides the first large-scale evidence for both the longevity and medieval intensification of Mediterranean terraces., Newton Fund; British Academy; UK Research and Innovation; Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK); European Union (EU); Horizon 2020; European Commission (EC); Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness; Xunta de Galicia; Dumbarton Oaks; Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust (UK)

Pastoral occupation of the uplands in the Bronze Age: first data from the MZ051S site (Camp da Ortisé, Val di Sole, Trento, Italy) - Available data on human occupation of mountain areas in late Prehistory are still rather scarce. Despite the growing archaeological interest in the uplands, few upland archaeological sites have been investigated in the Alps. In this paper, a new Bronze Age site from Val di Sole (Trentino, Italy) is presented. The site, a large dry-stone enclosure named MZ051S, has been investigated as part of the ALPES project (Alpine Landscapes: Pastoralism and Environment of Val di Sole). MZ051S is located in Val Poré, on a glacial plateau at 2240 metres of elevation. The excavations carried out between 2015 and 2019 uncovered a modest and poorly characterised archaeological assemblage, which includes lithic artefacts and potsherds. Scientific analyses provided significant multidisciplinary data on the site stratigraphy, chronology and formation, on its geographical and environmental context and on the characteristics of sediments and soils in the area. These new data contributed to inferring the evolution of this Alpine landscape, the dynamics of human occupation of the uplands of Val di Sole in the last 4000 years and the human impact on the vulnerable local environment, which preserves glacial and periglacial morphologies. Preliminary reconstructions suggest a first human occupation, related to the pastoral use of the valley, during the Early Bronze Age, followed by a more ephemeral presence in the Middle Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Evidence of human activities during the Medieval and Modern period, identified in other sites of the valley, has not been recorded at MZ051S. Geoarchaeological and palaeobotanical data seem to suggest the establishment of practices that led to the acceleration of soil-erosion processes during the Bronze Age and the subsequent degradation of soils in the area. The data derived from the investigation of MZ051S, albeit preliminary, are crucial to understand the processes of exploitation of the uplands in late Prehistory in the central-eastern Alps and to infer the complex interactions between anthropic and natural factors in mountain environments.

Transhumant pastoralism is a long-lasting strategy of human-environment interaction at high altitudes. In the European Alps the upland landscapes have been shaped by pastoral activities since the Neolithic. Pastoral groups have contributed to modification of plant communities of the high altitude environments, and they also created different types of seasonal facilities. The most effective assessment of the alpine landscape integrates the study of these structures within an environmental framework. Huts are exploited by herders for different types of activities; corrals and byres are used to stable and milk the animals. Most of these structures are made of stone. Recent archaeological projects shed new light on human exploitation of high altitudes, showing that the earliest dry stone structures occurred in the alpine pastures in the late third and second millennium BC. Interestingly enough, the appearance of these structures does not correspond to the first evidence of pastoral activity in the alpine uplands, as if the earliest pastoral groups exploited much more ephemeral shelters. This observation opens a series of interpretative questions: What triggered the construction of these permanent structures during the Bronze and Iron Age? Was it just for functional reasons or was it also a way to facilitate ‘possession’ of this ‘marginal’ environments?

In this paper, we attempt to determine if the psychometric features of the 11-scenario survey designed by Klockars et al. provide valid results for survey responses concerning police integrity and ethics. To do this, we used the multi-facet Rash statistical model on two samples from police respondents in two different countries (one in North America and the other in Continental Europe). Our results demonstrate that the survey, when combined with a specific statistical model, was able to assess the level of integrity of police officers in these two different samples. We conclude that the 11-scenario survey and the methodology we have developed can be considered very robust and is therefore useful for managerial purposes, particularly in candidate selection and promotion.

This paper addresses the question of the formation and evolution of upland rural Alpine landscapes. The case study presented here refers to two upland valleys—Val Molinac and Val Pore—located in th...

In fluvial environments, alluvial geomorphological features had a huge influence on settlement strategies during the Holocene. However, a few projects investigate this topic through quantitative and question-driven analyses of the human-landscape correlation. The Po Valley (N Italy) – located between the Mediterranean regions and continental Europe – is as a key area for the investigation of environmental and cultural influences on settlement strategies since prehistoric times. For instance, the transition from Roman to Medieval times represented a crucial moment for the reorganisation of human settlement strategies in the Po Valley; the process was mainly driven by climate changes and socio-political factors. Spatial Point Pattern Analysis (SPPA) was here employed to provide a solid statistical assessment of these dynamics in the two historical phases. A point pattern (PP) corresponds to the location of spatial events generated by a stochastic process within a bounded region. The density of the PP is proportional to the intensity of the underlying process. The intensity, in turn, can be constant within the region or spatially variable, thus influencing the uniformity of distribution of spatial events. SPPA provides powerful techniques for the statistical analysis of PP data that consist of a complete set of locations of archaeological sites/findings within an observation window. The use of spatial covariates enables the investigation of environmental and non-environmental factors influencing the spatial homogeneity of the point process. Archaeologists have increasingly analyzed such datasets to quantify the characteristics of observed spatial patterns with the aims of deriving hypotheses on the underlying processes or testing hypotheses derived from archaeological theory. The aim of this paper is to assess whether a shift in water management strategies between the Roman and Medieval periods influenced the spatial distribution of settlements, and to evaluate the relative importance of agricultural suitability over flood risks in each historical phase. In particular, the variability settlement patterns between Roman and Medieval phases has been assessed against two related proxies for alluvial geomorphology and agricultural suitability: flood hazard and soil texture. The SPPA performed shows that Roman and Medieval settlement patterns mirror two different human responses to the geomorphological dynamics of the area. Roman land- and water-management were able to minimize the flood hazard, to drain the floodplain and organize a complex land use on different soil types. In the Medieval period, the alluvial geomorphology of the area, characterised by wide swampy meadows and frequent flood events, affected the spatial organisation of settlement, which privileged topographically prominent positions. Social and cultural dynamics played a crucial role in responding to alluvial geomorphological environmental challenges in different times.

Reconstructing exposure histories of rock surfaces with luminescence dating is a recently developed tool which has proven valuable to chronologically constrain archaeological rock structures (e.g. Sohbati et al., 2012). Here, we explore the possibility to use infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) exposure dating to constrain the period of usage of two dry stone enclosure complexes (MZ001S and MZ005S) in Val di Sole, Trentino, Italy. Archaeological investigations confirm that the enclosures were used to keep livestock and radiocarbon ages and archaeological finds from MZ005S restrain the oldest time of use to the Late Middle Ages or Early Modern Period (Carrer and Angelucci, 2018). One 19th-century potshard has been recovered from MZ001S and interviews with residents indicate that MZ001S may have been in use until the mid-20th century. Mica and quartz-rich gneiss rocks of both structures were sampled, together with calibration rock surfaces which had been exposed for one year. Cores were extracted from the rocks with a water-cooled bench drill and cut with a cooled precision saw. Whole rock slices (approx. 0.7 mm thin) were heated to 180 °C for 100 seconds and were subsequently measured with infrared diodes at 50 °C for 300 seconds to create IRSL-depth profiles. Exposure ages were calculated with the exposure dating model developed by Sohbati et al. (2011) for which we used de-trapping rates calculated from the exposed calibration surfaces. IRSL-with-depth profiles are presented from both natural and calibration surfaces. Preliminary ages severely underestimate expected exposure ages (decades of exposure, compared to expected centuries of exposure) and precision of the ages is low. More investigations are necessary but possible reasons for this age discrepancy are denudation of the rock surface, heterogenic mineralogy with patches of opaque minerals which locally increase light attenuation, or the calibration samples do not represent good analogues for the rocks from the stone structures. The low precision of the ages appears to originate from variations in the IRSL-depth profiles between different cores cut from the same sample. ReferencesCarrer, F., Angelucci, D.E., 2018. Continuity and discontinuity in the history of upland pastoral landscapes: the case study of Val Molinac and Val Poré (Val di Sole, Trentino, Eastern Italian Alps). Landscape Research 43, 862–877. doi:10.1080/01426397.2017.1390078.Sohbati, R., Murray, A., Jain, M., Buylaert, J.P., Thomsen, K., 2011. Investigating the resetting of OSL signals in rock surfaces. Geochronometria 38. doi:https://doi.org/10.2478/s13386-011-0029-2.Sohbati, R., Murray, A. S., Chapot, M. S., Jain, M., and Pederson, J. 2012. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) as a chronometer for surface exposure dating J. Geophys. Res., 117, doi:10.1029/2012JB009383.

The uplands between the Giau pass and Mondeval (1,900-2,700 m asl) yielded significant evidence of human activities, from the Mesolithic to the present. The main reason for the intense occupation of this area is related to the exploitation of ore resources (galena), as well as faunal, forestry and other environmental resources. In three areas, characterised by a gentle terrain and open vegetation, clusters of engravings have been identified on volcanic rocks or bedrock outcrops. These engravings are compass-made circles, with variable grooves (from large and deep to shallow), often concentric, sometimes organized in geometric patterns or lacking any geometric organization. This type of evidence, which is difficult to date, has few comparable examples. Analysing their spatial distribution, the land use of the area and the information provided by documentary sources, we suggest that they might have been used as boundary markers within the old community of San Vito di Cadore.

More than 80 per cent of the world's landscapes are influenced significantly by human activities, and current land-use and land cover trends are likely to increase the rate of landscape change at a significant rate in the near future. To manage and guide landscape change, and an advocacy of positive landscape change–rather than attempts to stop change as in traditional preservationist approaches–requires the identification of threats and opportunities. Tools to do this will need to be based on well-investigated evidence for the long-term past evolution of landscapes and the understanding of possible future scenarios for change. Historic landscape characterisation (HLC) is a GIS-based method employed to interpret and study landscapes with a particular focus on representing and mapping the aspects of landscape character which result from past cultural processes. This paper introduces a new protocol which uses HLC data to model future landscape evolution and to simulate scenarios of landscape change. It describes a computer-based simulation framework derived from landscape ecology and used with HLC datasets during research on a region in southern Turkey. Such integrated modelling protocols have the potential to assist landscape planners to develop holistic and informative approaches to managing landscape change. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group., Research Councils UK, RCUK: AH/P005829/1; Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştirma Kurumu, TÜBITAK: 116K829, This study was supported by the Katip Çelebi-Newton Fund (Research Councils UK (RCUK No. AH/P005829/1) and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK No. 116K829) Research Partnership).

X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques are broadly used for materials characterisation. In some respects, they can be regarded as complementary, as long as the first is mostly used to get phase (crystallographic) information and the second to evaluate chemical composition of the analysed samples. In this paper we present a combined approach for the acquisition and integrated analysis of XRD and XRF data. A novel laboratory instrument has been developed to perform XRD and XRF measurements simultaneously, using the same radiation source and two detectors collecting the diffraction and fluorescence patterns in a scanning mode. A combined Rietveld based refinement of both XRD and XRF data is then performed to obtain phase and chemical compositions. As a field test of the proposed approach, we analysed some archaeological finds from an alpine pastoral enclosure in Val Pore (Val di Sole, Trentino, Italy). The different features of the analysed archaeological specimens provide indications on the wide applicability range of the proposed approach, that may therefore result particularly useful and effective in materials analysis, including those pertaining to the archaeological and cultural heritage fields.

Global and local analyses of spatial autocorrelation are commonplace in spatial archaeology. However, they are exclusively focused on continuous numerical parameters, even though logical (presence/absence) and categorical parameters are equally frequent in archaeological research. Global tests of spatial dependence for categorical data are routinely used in other fields, and local versions of these tests (known as LICD) have recently been developed. This paper provides a detailed description of such methods, and presents the first adaptation and application of LICD to archaeological data. Different LICD versions have been tested on two case-studies: (a) an archaeological grid, with object presence or absence recorded for each cell; (b) Historic Landscape Characterisation, with the origin of character types (mediaeval, post-mediaeval or modern) recorded for each region. These examples seek to showcase and promote the use of LICD in landscape and intra-site archaeology.

The study of past human-environment interaction in mountain environments is of critical importance to understand the evolution of human impact on alpine and subalpine ecosystems. However, the dearth and complexity of archaeological evidence from the uplands prevents a full understanding of socioecological dynamics at high altitude. In order to overcome this limitation, archaeologists are increasingly relying on ethnoarchaeological interpretation or computer modelling. In this paper these two approaches are integrated. A static mathematical model is developed to simulate rural economic strategies in two villages of the Italian Alps, between the eighteenth and the nineteenth century. Simulation scenarios are created using the ethnohistorical data collected in the area, and simulation results are validated against historical land-use evidence. The outcomes suggest that the use of ethnoarchaeological methods to develop and validate hypothetical scenarios can be extremely beneficial for improving the heuristic potential of archaeological simulation, in the mountains and elsewhere.

This paper deals with the ethnoarchaeological analysis of the spatial pattern of artefacts and ecofacts within two traditional pastoral huts (a dwelling and a seasonal dairy) in the uplands of Val Maudagna (Cuneo province, Italian western Alps). The composition of the ethnoarchaeological assemblages of the two huts was studied and compared; point pattern analysis was applied to identify spatial processes mirrored in the interactions between objects; Moran’s I correlogram and empirical variogram were used to investigate the effects of trampling on the displacement of objects on the floor. The results were compared with information provided by the herder who still used the huts. The quantitative and ethnographical data enabled inferences to be made that can help in the interpretation of archaeological seasonal sites. The function of a seasonal site can be recognized, as can the impact of delayed curation on the composition of the assemblage and the importance of the intensity of occupation compared with the frequency of occupation. The spatial organization of activities is reflected in the spatial patterns of objects, with clearer identification of activity areas in intensively occupied sites, and there is evidence for the behaviour behind the spatial segregation of activities. Trampling is a crucial post-depositional factor in the displacement of artefacts and ecofacts, especially in non-intensively exploited sites. From a methodological point of view, this research is another example that highlights the importance of integrating quantitative methods (especially spatial analysis and geostatistical methods) and ethnoarchaeological data in order to improve the interpretation of archaeological sites and assemblages. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10816-015-9268-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This paper investigates one of the main issues of the archaeology of pastoralism in the southern Alps: the decrease of upland archaeological evidence in the late Iron Age (IA) and the Roman period. A novel interpretation is proposed using ethnoarchaeological, ethnographic and ethnohistoric data collected in different areas of the French and Italian Alps. These data document the existence of two pastoral strategies: Alpine pastoralism (focused on dairying activity) and transhumance (mainly focused on the exploitation of wool and primary products of livestock). The sites related to the first strategy are usually permanent and complex, while those related to the second are simple and ephemeral. On the basis of this information, the decrease of upland archaeological evidence during the late IA and the Roman period has been interpreted as a consequence of the decrease of dairy activity and increase of transhumance. These inferences allow us to rethink the evolution of human exploitation of high mountain environments, as well as to tackle the bias of archaeological invisibility in specific pastoral contexts. Furthermore, they also confirm the important role of ethnoarchaeology as a method of improving archaeological interpretation.

The interpretative power of quantitative intra-site spatial analysis has long been recognised by archaeologists. On the contrary, very few ethnoarchaeological works have engaged with the statistical analysis of intra-site pattern of artefacts and ecofacts. Nonetheless, ethnoarchaeology is uniquely placed to guide and assist in the identification of sound techniques and in the development of the methodology of analysis. The possibility to directly connect the distribution of the proxies under study with the activity that generated such distribution, provide the means of fine-tuning the tools we use for identifying these patterns in the archaeological record. As a consequence, archaeological methodology and interpretation both benefit from the application of improved methodologies. In this paper we review some of the most common techniques used to analyse activity areas and we provide examples of the application of such techniques to ethnoarchaeological contexts. The aim is to assess how archaeology can benefit from the intra-site spatial analysis of ethnoarchaeological contexts.

In this paper I propose a novel integration of inductive predictive modelling and ethnoarchaeology. The case study concerns seasonal upland pastoral settlement patterns in the eastern Italian Alps. A sample of modern pastoral sites has been selected, and their relationships with environmental variables have been analyzed in order to create a model to predict the location of archaeological upland pastoral sites. The model has been tested with modern and archaeological control samples. It has proved to be useful for predicting the location of specific site categories. Ethnoarchaeological fieldwork has been carried out in the same alpine sample area, which has enhanced the interpretative potential of the proposed model, suggesting that the spatial of the analyzed sites could well be related to their dairying function. The creation of ethnoarchaeological locational models with a predictive potential may be very important not only in helping to tackle some theoretical and methodological problems in predictive modelling, but also in enhancing the importance of ethnoarchaeology in landscape archaeology projects.

This special issue of Quaternary International concerns the Human Occupations in Mountain Environments (hereafter HOME). This topic gives the name of one of the commissions of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Science and it was also the topic discussed during the session A6a - organised by the HOME members - held during the last XVII IUPPS conference (Burgos, Spain, 1-7 september 2014). The papers here presented are the proceedings of that session. Here we present our point about mountain archaeology, including methodology and some future challenges. Fil: Grimaldi, Stefano. Università Degli Studi Di Trento; Italia Fil: Bang Andersen, Sveinung. University Of Stavanger - Museum Of Archaeology; Noruega Fil: Carrer, Francesco. Università Degli Studi Di Trento; Italia Fil: Crotti, Pierre. Musée Cantonal D'archeologie Et D'histoire de Lausanne; Suiza Fil: Della Casa, Philippe. Universität Zürich; Suiza Fil: Fontana, Federica. Università Degli Studi Di Ferrara; Italia Fil: Leitner, Walter. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentina Fil: Mansur, Maria Estela. Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut; Alemania Fil: Reinhold, Sabine. No especifica

The European high Alps are internationally renowned for their dairy produce, which are of huge cultural and economic significance to the region. Although the recent history of alpine dairying has been well studied, virtually nothing is known regarding the origins of this practice. This is due to poor preservation of high altitude archaeological sites and the ephemeral nature of transhumance economic practices. Archaeologists have suggested that stone structures that appear around 3,000 years ago are associated with more intense seasonal occupation of the high Alps and perhaps the establishment of new economic strategies. Here, we report on organic residue analysis of small fragments of pottery sherds that are occasionally preserved both at these sites and earlier prehistoric rock-shelters. Based mainly on isotopic criteria, dairy lipids could only be identified on ceramics from the stone structures, which date to the Iron Age (ca. 3,000 - 2,500 BP), providing the earliest evidence of this practice in the high Alps. Dairy production in such a marginal environment implies a high degree of risk even by today’s standards. We postulate that this practice was driven by population increase and climate deterioration that put pressure on lowland agropastoral systems and the establishment of more extensive trade networks, leading to greater demand for highly nutritious and transportable dairy products.

Cet article dresse un portrait sommaire du fonctionnement des organisations policières en Italie afin de situer l’organisation policière de la région de la Toscane. Nous présentons ensuite les résultats obtenus à la collecte de données des 1 520 policiers de cette organisation qui se sont prêtés à l’exercice de répondre à un questionnaire anonyme destiné à mesurer, d’une part, le degré d’attachement des répondants à cinq grands thèmes de la culture professionnelle policière et, d’autre part, la propension de ces mêmes répondants quant à dénoncer ou non des comportements dérogatoires hypothétiques présentés sous forme de vignettes. Les résultats obtenus à l’analyse des réponses des policiers toscans seront comparés à ce que la passation de ce même questionnaire a pu faire ressortir dans le cas des deux études étatsuniennes qui en étaient l’origine. Cet effort de comparaison permet de faire ressortir les spécificités italiennes de même qu’un certain nombre de caractéristiques que nous pourrions attribuer à une culture professionnelle policière générale., This article, empirical and descriptive in its nature, presents an overview of the Italian policing system and the context of policing in the northern region of Tuscan. Thereafter, we present the results obtained from a survey that was conducted among 1 520 police officers from this region. The survey tool combines the questionnaire designed by Weisburd et al. (2000), where the questions are aimed at common police organisational culture themes, and the questionnaire designed separately by Klockars et al. (1997) in order to assess the ethical position of police officers regarding 11 vignettes of derogatory conducts. The results from the Tuscan region are then compared to the two original US studies. This comparison yields to elements of what has been referred in the literature as a general police culture, as well as elements that tend to indicate dissimilarities that we attribute to important contextual differences in the policing systems of the two countries., Este artículo presenta una descripción general del funcionamiento de la policía en Italia y sitúa la correspondiente a la región de Toscana. A continuación se presentan los resultados de la colecta de datos de 1 520 policías de dicha organización que aceptaron responder un cuestionario anónimo destinado a medir, por una parte, el grado de apego a cinco grandes temas de la cultura profesional policiaca y, por otra parte, la propensión a denunciar o no comportamientos derogatorios hipotéticos presentados en forma de viñetas. Los resultados obtenidos con la policía de Toscana se comparan en seguida con los obtenidos en los cuestionarios originales aplicados en dos estudios estadounidenses. La comparación permite analizar las especificidades italianas, lo mismo que algunas características que podemos atribuir a la cultura profesional policiaca en general.

The identification of Mesolithic lithic scatters on the highland district of Cadore (1700–2700 m a.s.l.), in the Eastern Italian Alps, started during the 1980s, enhanced by the discovery of the rock-shelter site of Mondeval de Sora. A new archaeological survey project was developed in this area, particularly between Passo Giau and Col de la Puina, from 2011 to 2014. The adoption of a “total archaeology approach” enabled the identification of different types of archaeological evidence. This paper focuses specifically on the small-scale record represented by lithic artefacts. Both previously identified sites and newly recognised find-spots have been positioned, described and spatially analysed in connection to the topography of the investigated territory, in order to set hypotheses on the settlement strategies adopted by prehistoric groups. Most of these scatters can be attributed with a good approximation either to the Sauveterrian or to the Castelnovian phase of the Mesolithic or generically to the Mesolithic, thus confirming the intense occupation of these territories by the last groups of hunter–gatherers. Nonetheless the presence of some lithic artefacts that can be attributed to more recent prehistoric periods has led the authors to reconsider the common assumption that all lithic assemblages at high altitude should necessarily be attributed to the Mesolithic.

With its “Secondary Products Revolution” model, Andrew Sherratt suggested that the intensification of secondary products (milk, wool, and traction) exploitation during the fifth millennium B.C. in the Near East (and its spread into Europe during the fourth millennium B.C.) had important consequences for the development of Neolithic societies. In this paper, it is suggested that this model might not have a proper anthropological meaning, namely that a secondary product “package” does not exist among rural communities.

Une comparaison de l’identite professionnelle des commissaires de police italiens et francais montre une situation contrastee : cote francais, la defense opiniâtre d’un statut special demontre l’emprise d’un corps beaucoup plus centralise qu’en Italie. L’adaptation du chef de la securite urbaine a l’imperatif de decentralisation y est plus delicate. Les commissaires italiens, plus faibles dans leur legitimite historique, cherchent les moyens de rehausser leur prestige sans y parvenir veritablement. Pourtant, l’Italie beneficie de meilleurs atouts dans l’architecture plus decentralisee de son appareil de securite publique. Dans aucun des deux systemes hybrides (civil et militaire) les atouts respectifs ne sont suffisants pour contrer les tendances a la remilitarisation generale des systemes policiers.

Depuis quelques annees, l’Italie aussi est confrontee aux problemes de l’insecurite urbaine. Il s’agit d’un phenomene aux causes individuelles et collectives multiples dont l’ampleur est, toutefois, souvent surestimee par la population et les medias. Pour y repondre, l’Italie a mis en œuvre toute une serie de mesures. Ces mesures s’inspirent d’experiences menees dans des pays etrangers. Elles ont ete formalisees par le projet « Villes sures» initie, en 1994, par la region d’Emilie-Romagne. Un premier bilan de dix annees de leur application montre que la politique de securite mise en place est axee sur la recherche, dans tous les domaines, d’une collaboration Etat/regions/autorites locales (provinces et communes) pour developper et ameliorer les reponses preventives et repressives. Dans ce cadre, des protocoles et des contrats de securite ont ete signes et, dans certaines regions, des lois specifiquement regionales sur la securite ont ete promulguees. L’esprit de cette politique est multiple: agir dans tous les domaines qui affectent la securite et la qualite de vie; faire travailler ensemble tous les acteurs sociaux concernes; et, rendre les autorites locales parties prenantes aux mesures a adopter et a appliquer.