An overview of the project
Across Europe, common lands were traditionally used for animal husbandry and woodland exploitation, as well as for wide range of temporary uses such as cultivation and fodder production. For several years I have been researching and writing about this controversial subject (Stagno & Tigrino 2012; Stagno et al. 2018), which has its origins in the ways to exploit and shape the landscape in the past. Even today common lands are routinely subjected to re-negotiations between communities because territorial and administrative jurisdictions often fail to take into account ancient customary rights on environmental resources. This is a narrative which can be approached in different ways, most commonly as a matter of historical geography, legal history or social anthropology (eg. historian Dyer 2006 for local customs and statutes; Agrawal, Gibson 2001 Agrawal 2003 for an anthropological perspective). Unsurprisingly, given the current interest in the historical roots of European ‘commons’, there is an appetite to fund projects on this topic (eg. FP7-ERC project ‘United we stand’, De Moor 2015), also related to the recognition and preservation of biodiverse cultural landscapes (Rotherham 2013).
In my previous Marie Curie research project (ARCHIMEDE) I examined local management strategies based on historical ecology, archaeological surveys and historic landscape characterization, mainly in the uplands of continental Europe (Stagno 2016; 2018). I defined different physical indicators to distinguish temporary appropriation, usurpations, and permanent appropriations of common-lands. For example, the terraces, boundary markers, tree cover and pottery scatters, which can be recorded macroscopically, indicate more permanent occupations, while archaeobotanical and geochemical analyses can distinguish between different grazing activities and manuring practices. The identification of evidence in the present landscape suggests a complex past of changes in the forms of appropriation and the claims of access rights. Shovel tests and laboratory analysis are an opportunity to deepen into their complex history and to reconstruct the relationship between management, environmental resources and the activation of access rights to common lands through conflicts (Stagno 2016).
This work adds significantly to our understanding of a hitherto unknown
archaeological resource, and, at the same time, it underlines the need interdisciplinary research. For example, the identification of legal practices (forms of property, assessment of lands, transformation of uses, organization and access rights) constitutes an important element for the future management of European common land heritage.
During my stay in Durham I will deepen into these interdisciplinary aspects of my work by incorporating different perspectives from non-representational theory, social and legal history. For example, the jurisdictional dimension might include the processes related to husbandry (e.g. rights of pastures shaped the movement of flocks and herds) and agricultural colonization of upland areas. The ‘topography of rights’, claimed by local communities and local social groups, was almost everywhere in competition. Following these ideas, I will tackle three cases of study in order to illustrate the relationship between changes in agro-forestry-pastoral strategies and jurisdictional access forms, and how those influenced the transformations of settlement and administrative patterns in rural areas.
In the Department of Archaeology I will work with colleagues integrated in the research group the ‘North East Research Group’ and within the University I will make contacts with the ‘Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East’. There is already a wide experience in working on the topic of common lands at the University of Durham. For example, Prof Chris Gerrard has examined this topic on the wetland moors of Somerset (for fuel, thatching materials, fishing, coppicing, etc.). Meanwhile Ronan O’Donnell has written about enclosure and improvement in the context of NE England (O’Donnell 2015), including discussions on common rights, rearrangement of landscape and associated new technologies (fodders, drainage, crop rotation, new farm layouts). Henry Jones is currently researching the historical development of the legal regulation of common land and private land (Jones 2013) and Andy Wood has been working on fuel rights and on the management of communal resources for a long time (Wood 2018). One of the final goals of this project is to strengthen a field in which Durham staff is currently dispersed, which will have the effect of encouraging dialogue, engagement and partnerships. To achieve these objectives, during my time in Durham I will organize seminars and workshops to involve colleagues and other UK and European institutions.
Landscapes of rights 