Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Great war archaeology »

The First World War is beginning to receive archaeological attention. This paper highlights the technical, ethical and political challenges, including recovery and re-burial of the multi-faith dead, excavation of battlefield features and volatile ordnance, and incorporating the sensitive management of multi-vocal landscapes as cultural heritage and tourist destinations.

Just over a hundred years ago, the First World War profoundly disrupted the landscape of Europe: from the fields of Galicia to the French plains, from the Alpine arc to the coasts of the Baltic Sea, position and trench warfare brought about transformations by etching the ground, carving out mountains, reorganizing territorial arrangements and original environmental ecosystems, leaving room for the stratification of new traces and meanings that, over time, have contributed to the construction of what is now universally recognized as a fragile cultural heritage of high complexity. If Law n.78 of 2001, as a synthesis of a very intense and fruitful debate, protects the remains of the First World War mainly intending to protect this particular historical heritage without altering “the material and historical characteristics” (in the Italian context), in the aftermath of the celebrations for the Centenary, and in light of numerous projects that have been applied to the restoration/recovery/evaluation of these assets, to return to investigate the “landscapes of war” means to set up a new research to understand how these remains can continue to narrate their “being in time” to future generations, stimulating “possibilities of memory” and representing at the same time substantial resources, cultural but also economic, for the future. A problem of scale clearly emerged following the analysis of the status quo of a representative sample of places and artifacts and concluded/ongoing projects at the international level. The pregnant force of the remains as a “system” deeply connected not only by a physical infrastructure of field fortifications, entrenchments, barracks, and obstacle courses but also by a dense network of intangible and visual relationships that substantiated their functioning, today is increasingly weakening. As a confirmation of this, it is evident, for example, how the fragmentation of the interventions and their management policies is also reflected in the greater attention paid by the majority of the carried out projects to the permanent fortifications compared to the entrenched articulated systems that surrounded them and were an integral part of them. To solve this interpretative-operative gap, the need to recover a systemic vision capable of moving at different scales and grasping the intangible wholeness of the system-vestiges, today apparently shattered, has emerged. This vision should focus attention not on the fragments as “remains of a whole that no longer exists”, but on the potential that they can still generate if put in tension with each other: a magnetic field capable of binding the different parts and recomposing their meanings. This has led to moving away from the specificity of individual disciplinary knowledge to embrace a transversal approach able to place the warscape at the core and analyze it in its entire nature and biography of landscape-palimpsest multi-layered in different times. In this perspective, the indissoluble symbiosis between physical “signs” and immaterial values (deposited over time) has turned out to be the specific peculiarity of the “character” of these “war landscapes”, thus recognizing the condition of fragility not as a point of weakness, but rather as their most “authentic” peculiarity. It was possible to identify different “ways of seeing” these warscapes through this simultaneously inductive and deductive knowledge-based process, studying not only the theoretical and methodological aspects of spatial analysis but also the relationships between the socio-cultural, historical, and anthropological factors that have defined its development and transformation. This approach focuses increasingly on the need to adopt a holistic vision to overcome the current fragmentation of this heritage and think about its future without betraying its authenticity. Operationally, this approach has been declined through two current levels of research. As an essential moment to consciously set up the future operative proposals, an order matrix was defined to reread the complexity recovering a systemic vision also in the analytical phase. By arranging the building typologies with the different morphologies of the territories, it was possible to identify some “war-scape classes”, useful to interpret the fragmentary nature of the different “war landscapes” through the identification both of the driving forces that had determined their construction, in different times, and of the same ones that can determine the trajectories of future change. By identifying the different “war-scape classes”, it was possible to critically reinterpret the status quo of places and artifacts through a “systemic look”. Based on what emerged, an articulate SWOT analysis was devolped to highlight the main potential and criticality of the remains at the system level. The second declination of this holistic approach focused on the meaning of the recognition of “war landscapes” as “places of memory”. Through the evolutionary study of the different phases of the “construction of the Great War memory”, which throughout a century have alternated multiple and polysense “practices of narration”, it was possible to better understand the processes that led to the recognition of the testimonial value of the remains. In this way, it was also possible to understand that specific “sense of place” that, metaphorically, identifies the different warscapes as “high capacity condensers of values”, in which the intensity of the potential (the meaningfulness of meanings/new re-significations) is directly proportional to the charge that is generated at the moment in which the relationships between the different poles (archipelago of vestiges as fragments) are strengthened. In this specific regard, it was possible to identify the physical space of the threshold between “the visible and the submerged” as a particularly dense and pregnant accumulation basin to be “poetically investigated” to unveil the permanence of the imprint of the war (manifested there as much on a physical level in the “matter marked” by the conflict as in the meanings assumed by such “signs”), still present today but “hidden” under the multiple layers of deposition that have stratified over time. The considerations obtained through the two levels of research have been combined with a theoretical reflection on the recognition of the “landscapes of war” as “heritage” understood in its various etymological meanings (legacy, inheritance, and patrimony). In this way, it was possible to better understand the meaning of the concept of enhancement applied to this heritage, bringing to the surface some semantic nuclei that are currently critical concerning the strengthening and/or enhancement of which to consciously direct future orientations of priorities. The priority issue, which strongly emerged, was the pressing need to develop new operational strategies to facilitate the recognition, within the contemporary multi-layered landscape, of the different levels of permanence of the remains, including in particular the most fragile “signs” in terms of permanence, currently at greater “risk of loss”. In addition to this, the need to propose new strategies regarding the policies of coordination and management of processes with particular attention to the importance of participatory aspects (issues identified but not explored in detail in this research), and the need to better understand some aspects of construction technology (related to technological experiments of reinforced concrete of whose structural behavior little is known), also emerged. In an inter-scalar vision, these aspects have assumed even greater importance in the awareness that the ability to recognize different areas concerning which the vestiges remain in the contemporary world at different levels of semantic significance is a necessary prerequisite for future projects to operate recovering that systemic vision lost today, ensuring the system-vestiges, as such, different margins of design, preserving our “possibility of memory” through its evocative potential. In this perspective, the research has therefore elaborated and proposed a “method in complexity” proper to facilitate the recognition of what can have testimonial value at the landscape scale by identifying areas in which the vestiges of war persist at different temperatures. This is a new paradigm that, moving from the need to recover a systemic view capable of recognizing the permanence of even the most fragile remains, expands the meaning of “testimonial value” at the scale of the “warscape” by introducing the concept of “testimonial gradient”. This is a useful parameter to identify the different areas in which the degree of semantic significance of the vestiges and the related “possibilities of memory” are graduated according to the level of knowledge of specific indicators, such as the historical-identity aspects, the typological-constructive knowledge of the artifacts, the degree of community involvement and, above all, the legibility of the vestige-system. In addition to having defined at a conceptual level the meaning of these indicators, the research has also developed an analytical method based on a multi-criteria analysis to make operational the qualitative considerations expressed by the knowledge-based parameters previously identified and to obtain accurate fragility maps of the different warscapes. These documents are fascinating not only because they give an overall view of the semantic density of a given context, but because they are a fundamental proactive tool for future practices of “care”: the essential knowledge base on which to base future choices in terms of conservation, protection, and enhancement. In the light of the previous considerations, it has emerged the awareness of how necessary is the interdisciplinary collaboration for the definition of the indicators constituting the “testimonial gradient”: the last part of the present research has therefore been mainly focused on the elaboration of an operative method to facilitate the deepening of two of these indicators, in relation also to the criticalities previously emerged, linked to the issues of recognizability of the most fragile permanences, both from an overall point of view and of construction technology. Therefore, intending to contribute to the unveiling of the broad and deep information basin in which the complex system of visible but also “submerged” vestiges has been recognized, the research proposed the elaboration of a knowledge-based method called “stratigraphic telescope”, a methodological tool able to explore the processes of construction/transformation of war landscapes at different scales. This method proved to be a fertile contribution to place, side by side with the study of archival documents and manuals of fortifications, an indispensable store of knowledge to better understand the construction techniques, the technical and technological details, the materials used, and the tactical or planting solutions proposed. This method is clearly based on applying the interpretive code of architectural stratigraphy to the scale of the landscape, thus interpreting the history of artifacts as the result of processes of addition, subtraction, and transformation that have left physical traces linked together in a stratigraphic sequence. Operationally, this has been interpreted in understanding the archaeological transformation’s dynamics of the landscapes over time, comparing the impact of the war event with the current recognition of land uses and the permanence of the remains. This method founds itself mainly on analyzing, comparing, and interpreting historical documentation, period aerial photographs, current orthophotos, and data processing obtained by techniques of high-resolution (remote sensing). In this perspective, the use of software for the creation of Geographic Information Systems such as ArcGis and QuantumGis has been fundamental, as these work environments have allowed overall coordination of the entire cognitive process: from the integrated management of the different input datasets (georeferencing of historical maps of militarization and military aerial photographs) to the processing of the expected outputs. In this regard, the most innovative result of the research has been the important contribution that some specific visualization modalities of LIDAR data obtained through specific tools such as the Relief Tool Visualization (e.g., Hillshading from multiple directions and Sky-View-Factor visualization) have provided in the identification of different degrees of legibility of the footprint of the Great War within the topography of today’s landscape. The validation phase on specific case studies, for example, on the system of Austro-Hungarian forts in Trentino (Italy) and on the entrenched system around Fort Busa Verle (Altopiano di Vezzena, TN, Italy), has allowed us to verify the effectiveness of this method not only on a qualitative but also on a quantitative level. In conclusion, therefore, the elaboration of the tool “stratigraphic telescope”, in addition to the new possibilities of narration introduced by it, is a significant methodological contribution to the definition of the “testimonial gradient” previously described as a crucial moment to consciously set up future projects. The implementation of the proposed method on other case histories and the theoretical-operational deepening of the other identified indicators are the main directions towards which future research perspectives can be developed.
Poco più di cent’anni fa, il Primo Conflitto Mondiale ha profondamente sconvolto il paesaggio dell’intera Europa: dai campi di Galizia alle pianure francesi, dall’arco alpino sino alle coste del Mar Baltico, la guerra di posizione e di trincea ha determinato trasformazioni incidendo il terreno, scavando le montagne, riorganizzando gli assetti territoriali e gli ecosistemi ambientali originali, lasciando spazio alla stratificazione di nuove tracce e significati che, nel corso del tempo, hanno contribuito alla costruzione di quello che oggi è universalmente riconosciuto come un patrimonio culturale fragile ad alta complessità. Se la Legge n.78 del 2001, come sintesi di un dibattito molto intenso e fecondo, protegge le vestigia della Prima guerra mondiale principalmente con l’obiettivo di tutelare questo particolare patrimonio storico senza alterarne «le caratteristiche materiali e storiche» (in ambito italiano), all’indomani delle celebrazioni per il Centenario ed alla luce di numerosi progetti che, sino ad oggi, si sono applicati al restauro/recupero/valorizzazione di questi beni, tornare ad indagare i “paesaggi di guerra” significa impostare una nuova ricerca per comprendere in che modo tali vestigia possano continuare a narrare il loro “essere nel tempo” anche alle prossime generazioni, stimolando “possibilità di memoria” e rappresentando al tempo stesso concrete risorse, culturali ma anche economiche, per il futuro. A seguito dell’analisi dello status quo di un campione rappresentativo di luoghi e manufatti e di progettualità concluse e in atto, a livello internazionale, è chiaramente sorto un problema di scala: la forza pregnante delle vestigia in quanto “sistema” profondamente connesso non solo da un’infrastrutturazione fisica di fortificazioni campali, trinceramenti, baraccamenti e campi ad ostacoli, ma anche da una fitta rete di relazioni intangibili e visuali che ne sostanziavano il funzionamento, oggi si sta sempre più indebolendo. A conferma di ciò si evidenzia, ad esempio, come la frammentazione degli interventi e delle politiche di gestione degli stessi si riverberi anche nella maggior attenzione dedicata dalla maggioranza dei progetti realizzati alle fortificazioni permanenti rispetto agli articolati sistemi trincerati che le circondavano e ne costituivano parte integrante. Per risolvere tale gap interpretativo-operativo, è emersa la necessità di recuperare una visione sistemica in grado di muoversi alle diverse scale e cogliere l’intangibile interezza del sistema-vestigia, oggi apparentemente infranta, focalizzando l’attenzione non ai frammenti in quanto “resti di un intero che ora non esiste più”, ma al potenziale che essi possono ancora generare se messi in tensione uno con l’altro: un campo magnetico in grado di legare le diverse parti e ricomporne i significati. Ciò ha portato ad allontanarsi dalla specificità dei singoli saperi disciplinari per abbracciare invece un approccio trasversale in grado di porre al centro il warscape ed analizzarlo nella sua intera natura e biografia di paesaggio-palinsesto pluristratifcato in tempi diversi. In questa prospettiva, l’indissolubile simbiosi tra “segni” fisici e valori immateriali depositatisi nel corso del tempo è risultata essere la peculiarità specifica del “carattere” di tali “paesaggi di guerra”, riconoscendo quindi la condizione di fragilità non quale punto di debolezza, quanto piuttosto come la loro peculiarità più “autentica”. Attraverso tale processo conoscitivo contemporaneamente induttivo e deduttivo, studiando non solo gli aspetti teorici e metodologici dell’analisi spaziale, ma anche le relazioni tra i fattori socio-culturali, storici ed antropologici che ne hanno definito sviluppo e trasformazioni, è stato quindi possibile individuare differenti “way of seeing” di questi warscapes, mettendo sempre più a fuoco la necessità di adottare una visione olistica per superare l’attuale frammentarietà di questo patrimonio e pensare al suo futuro senza tradirne l’autenticità. Operativamente questo approccio si è declinato attraverso due contemporanei livelli di ricerca. Per recuperare una visione sistemica anche in fase analitica, quale momento essenziale per impostare consapevolmente le future proposte operative, è stata definita una matrice d’ordine per rileggere la complessità: mettendo a sistema le tipologie costruttive con le differenti morfologie dei territori, è stato possibile identificare alcune “war-scape classes”, utili per interpretare la frammentarietà dei differenti “paesaggi di guerra” attraverso l’individuazione sia delle driving forces che ne avevano determinato la costruzione, in tempi diversi, sia delle stesse che ne possono determinare le traiettorie di cambiamento future. Attraverso l’individuazione delle differenti “war-scape classes” è stato possibile reinterpretare criticamente lo status quo di luoghi e manufatti attraverso uno “sguardo sistemico”. Sulla scorta di quanto emerso è stata quindi elaborata un’articolata analisi SWOT per mettere in luce le principali potenzialità e criticità delle vestigia a livello di sistema. La seconda declinazione dell’innovativo approccio olistico precedentemente proposto si è concentrata sul significato del riconoscimento dei “paesaggi di guerra” quali “luoghi della memoria”. Attraverso lo studio evolutivo delle diverse fasi di “costruzione della memoria della Grande Guerra”, che nel corso di tutto un secolo hanno alternato molteplici e polisense “pratiche di narrazione”, è stato possibile meglio comprendere i processi che hanno portato al riconoscimento del valore testimoniale delle vestigia, e quindi di quel “sense of place” specifico che, metaforicamente, identifica i differenti warscapes quali “condensatori di valori ad alta capacità”, in cui l’intensità del potenziale (la pregnanza di significati/nuove ri-significazioni) è direttamente proporzionale alla carica che si genera nel momento in cui vengono rafforzate le relazioni tra i diversi poli (arcipelago di vestigia in quanto frammenti). A questo specifico riguardo, è stato possibile individuare lo spazio fisico della soglia tra “il visibile e il sommerso” quale bacino di accumulo particolarmente denso e pregnante da “indagare poeticamente” per disvelare le permanenze dell’impronta della guerra (ivi manifestatasi tanto a livello fisico nella “materia signata” dal conflitto quanto nei significati assunti da tali “segni”), oggi ancora presente ma “nascosta” al di sotto dei molteplici layer deposizionali che si sono stratificati nel corso del tempo. Le considerazioni ottenute attraverso i due livelli di ricerca sopra descritti sono state messe a sistema con una riflessione a livello teorico rispetto al riconoscimento dei “paesaggi di guerra” in quanto “patrimonio” inteso nelle sue diverse accezioni etimologiche (legacy, inheritance e patrimony). In questo modo è stato possibile meglio constualizzare il significato del concetto di enhancement applicato a questo patrimonio, facendo affiorare alcuni nuclei semantici attualmente critici, rispetto al rafforzamento e/o valorizzazione dei quali indirizzare consapevolmente i futuri orientamenti di priorità. Oltre alla necessità di proporre nuove strategie riguardanti le policies di coordinamento e gestione dei processi con particolare attenzione all’importanza degli aspetti partecipativi (questioni individuate ma non approfondite in dettaglio nella presente ricerca), e all’esigenza di meglio comprendere alcuni aspetti di tecnologia costruttiva (legati alle sperimentazioni tecnologiche del cemento rinforzato del cui comportamento strutturale poco si conosce), la questione prioritaria, emersa con forza, è stata la stringente necessità di elaborare nuove strategie operative per facilitare il riconoscimento, all’interno del paesaggio contemporaneo pluri-stratificato, dei diversi livelli di permanenza delle vestigia, tra cui in particolare dei “segni” più fragili in quanto a permanenza, attualmente a maggior “rischio di perdita”. In una visione inter-scalare, questo aspetto ha assunto ancor maggior importanza nella consapevolezza che la capacità di riconoscere diverse aree rispetto cui le vestigia permangono nella contemporaneità a differenti livelli di pregnanza semantica, costituisce un presupposto necessario alle future progettualità per operare recuperando quella visione sistemica oggi perduta, garantendo al sistema-vestigia, proprio in quanto tale, diversi margini di progettabilità, conservando la nostra “possibilità di memoria” attraverso la sua potenzialità evocativa. In questa prospettiva, la ricerca ha quindi elaborato e proposto un “metodo nella complessità” utile per facilitare il riconoscimento di ciò che può avere valore testimoniale alla scala del paesaggio attraverso l’individuazione di aree in cui le vestigia della guerra permangono a differenti temperature. Si tratta a tutti gli effetti di un nuovo paradigma che, muovendo dalla necessità di recuperare uno sguardo sistemico in grado di riconoscere le permanenze anche delle vestigia più fragili, dilata il significato di “valore di testimonianza” alla scala del “warscape” introducendo il concetto di “gradiente testimoniale”. Si tratta di un parametro utile ad identificare i diversi ambiti nei quali il grado di pregnanza semantica delle vestigia e le relative “possibilità di memoria” risultano graduati in base al livello di conoscenza di specifici indicatori, quali gli aspetti storico-identitari, le conoscenze tipologico-costruttive dei manufatti, il grado di coinvolgimento delle comunità e, soprattutto, la leggibilità del sistema-vestigia. Oltre ad aver definito a livello concettuale il significato di tali indicatori, la ricerca ha sviluppato anche un metodo analitico basato su di un’analisi multicriteriale per rendere operative le considerazioni qualitative espresse dai parametri conoscitivi precedentemente individuati ed ottenere delle vere e proprie mappe della fragilità dei diversi warscapes. Tali elaborati sono particolarmente interessanti non solo perché restituiscono una visione complessiva della densità semantica di un dato contesto, ma in quanto costituiscono un vero e proprio strumento proattivo verso le future pratiche di “cura”, la base conoscitiva indispensabile su cui fondare le future scelte in termini di conservazione, protezione ed enhancement. Alla luce delle precedenti considerazioni è emersa la consapevolezza di quanto necessaria sia la collaborazione interdisciplinare per la definizione degli indicatori costituivi il “gradiente testimoniale”: l’ultima parte della presente ricerca si è quindi concentrata principalmente sull’elaborazione di un metodo operativo per facilitare l’approfondimento di due di questi indicatori, in relazioni anche alle criticità precedentemente emerse, legate alle questioni di riconoscibilità delle permanenze più fragili, sia da un punto di vista d’insieme che di tecnologia costruttiva. Con l’obiettivo quindi di contribuire al disvelamento del bacino informativo ampio e profondo quale è stato riconosciuto il complesso sistema di vestigia visibili ma anche “sommerse”, la ricerca ha proposto l’elaborazione di un metodo conoscitivo denominato “cannocchiale stratigrafico”, uno strumento metodologico in grado di esplorare i processi di costruzione/trasformazione dei paesaggi di guerra alle diverse scale. Tale metodo si è dimostrato essere un contributo conoscitivo molto fertile per affiancare allo studio dei documenti d’archivio e dei Manuali di fortificazioni, bagaglio conoscitivo irrinunciabile per meglio comprendere le tecniche costruttive, i dettagli tecnici e tecnologici, i materiali utilizzati e le soluzioni tattiche o d’impianto proposte, l’applicazione alla scala del paesaggio del codice interpretativo proprio della stratigrafia dell’architettura, che interpreta la storia dei manufatti come esito di processi di apporto, sottrazione e trasformazione che hanno lasciato tracce fisiche collegate tra loro in una sequenza stratigrafica. Operativamente ciò si è declinato nell’interpretazione delle dinamiche di trasformazione archeologica dei paesaggi nel corso del tempo, mettendo a confronto l’impatto dell’evento bellico di cent’anni fa con la ricognizione attuale degli usi del suolo e delle permanenze delle vestigia, principalmente attraverso l’analisi, comparazione e relative interpretazioni tra documentazione storica, fotografie aree d’epoca, ortofoto attuali ed elaborazioni dei dati ottenuti da tecniche di telerilevamento ad alta risoluzione (remote sensing). In questa prospettiva, fondamentale è stato l’utilizzo di software per la creazione di Sistemi Geografici Informativi come ArcGis e QuantumGis in quanto tali ambienti di lavoro hanno permesso una coordinazione complessiva dell’intero processo conoscitivo: dalla gestione integrata dei diversi dataset di input (georeferenziazione di mappe storiche di militarizzazione e fotografie aeree militari) all’elaborazione degli outputs attesi. A questo riguardo, il risultato più innovativo ottenuto della ricerca è stato l’importante contributo che alcune specifiche modalità di visualizzazione dei dati LIDAR ottenute attraverso specifici tools quali il Relief Tool Visualization (ad esempio Hillshading from multiple directions e Sky-View-Factor visualization) hanno fornito nell’identificazione dei diversi gradi di leggibilità dell’impronta della Grande Guerra all’interno della topografia del paesaggio d’oggi. La fase di validazione su specifici casi-studio, ad esempio sul sistema dei forti austro-ungarici del Trentino (Italia) e sul sistema trincerato insistente nell’intorno di Forte Busa Verle (Altopiano di Vezzena, TN, Italy), ha permesso di verificare l’effettiva efficacia di tale metodo a livello non solo qualitativo ma anche quantitativo. In conclusione, quindi, l’elaborazione dello strumento “cannocchiale stratigrafico”, oltre alle nuove possibilità di narrazione da esso introdotte, costituisce un importante contributo metodologico per la definizione del “gradiente testimoniale” precedentemente descritto, quale momento necessario per impostare consapevolmente le future progettualità. L’implementazione del metodo proposto su altre casistiche e l’approfondimento teorico-operativo rispetto agli altri indicatori individuati costituiscono le principali direzioni verso cui possono essere sviluppate future prospettive di ricerca.

New Zealand’s First World War studies have traditionally focused on the soldier and battlefield experiences. ‘The Rural Home Front’ breaks with that tradition and focuses on the lives of people and the local communities that the soldiers left behind in the predominantly rural region of Taranaki in New Zealand. ‘The Rural Home Front’ is essentially a study of the impact and effects of the First World War on rural society. By focusing on topics and themes such as ‘war enthusiasm’, the voluntary spirit of fund raising and recruiting, conscription, attempting to maintain normality during wartime, responses to war deaths, the influenza epidemic, the Armistice and the need to remember, this thesis argues that civilians experienced the Great War, too, albeit differently from that of the soldiers serving overseas.

AbstractThe “Maritime Region of Southeastern Asia” between the south coast of China and Southeast Asia was once an important cross-border community in the multicultural lineages of human history. During the Mesolithic age around ten thousand years ago and the era of synchronically global and tremendous cultural change in human prehistory, the indigenous cultural connotation in this region and its unique model of cultural evolution along with both inheritance, continuation, and innovation between the Paleolithic and Neolithic age, are of great significance in the cultural history of humankind and Asia–Pacific ethno-history.

AbstractThe “Maritime Region of Southeastern Asia” between the south coast of China and Southeast Asia was once an important cross-border community in the multicultural lineages of human history. During the Mesolithic age around ten thousand years ago and the era of synchronically global and tremendous cultural change in human prehistory, the indigenous cultural connotation in this region and its unique model of cultural evolution along with both inheritance, continuation, and innovation between the Paleolithic and Neolithic age, are of great significance in the cultural history of humankind and Asia–Pacific ethno-history.

Archaeology and documentary research: the first bastioned fortifications of Alacant (Spain)In the Courts of the Crown of Aragon held in Monzón (Huesca, 1528) it was raised the need to organise the coast defence of the Kingdom of Valencia through a series of fortification works and the creation and maintenance of militias in order to avoid the attacks and incursions of the Turks and the Berber corsairs. In Alacant (1533), under the auspice of the Duke of Calabria, viceroy of the Kingdom of Valencia, and the design of Joan de Cervelló, noble, military and engineer of King Carlos I and with great experience in artillery and fortification of cities, three bastions were built taking advantage of the medieval walls: Sant Francesc, Sant Bertomeu and Sant Sebastià. These improvement works on the walls continued with the rise of two more towers that protected the gate (Puerta del Mar or Montserrat). The bastions had a circular plan and an escarp elevation up to their half and vertical until the crowning, besides a low armed parapet. They were demolished because of the urban renovations that Alacant experienced during the nineteenth century. However, the historical planimetry, engraving images and photographs, as well as the archaeological excavations carried out in them allow to know their morphology and materials, which are explained in this paper.

Indonesia marked a new era, known as the Reformation Era, in 1998 after the downfall of Suharto, the main face of the regime called the New Order (Orde Baru) and ran the government from 1966 to 1998. This long-run government creates certain structures in many sectors, including the museum sector in Indonesia. Suharto leads the government in a totalitarian manner, his power control over many layers, including the use of museums as regime propaganda tools. The propaganda in the museums such as a standardized storyline, the use of historical versions that are approved by the government, and the representation of violence through the military tale with the nation’s great enemy is made for the majority of museums from the west to east Indonesia at that time. Thus, after almost two-decade after the downfall of the New Order regime how Indonesian museum transform into this new era? In the new democratic era, museum management is brought back to the regional government. The museums are encouraged to writing the local history and deconstruct the storyline from the previous regime. Not only just stop there, but there are alsomany new museums open to the public with new concepts or storylines to revive the audience. Even, the new museum was also erected by the late president’s family to rewrite the narration of the hero story of Suharto in Yogyakarta. This article aims to look up the change in the Indonesian museum post-New Order regime. How they adjust curatorial narration to present the storyline, is there any change to re-write the new narrative, or they actually still represent the New-Order idea along with the violence symbolic that never will deconstruct. Indonesia menandai masa baru yang dikenal sebagai masa reformasi pada tahun 1998 dengan tumbangnya Soeharto yang menjadi wajah utama rezim yang dikenal dengan sebutan Orde Baru ini. Pemerintahan Orde Baru telah berlangsung sejak tahun 1966 hingga 1998 yang mengubah banyak tatanan kehidupan, termasuk sektor permuseum di Indonesia. Corak pemerintahan Orde Baru yang condong pada kontrol dan totalitarian mengantarkan museum sebagai kendaraan propaganda rezim Soeharto. Dimulai dari narasi storyline yang seragam di seluruh museum negeri di Indonesia hingga kekerasan simbolik lewat narasi militer dan musuh besar bangsa. Lalu setelah hampir dua dekade era reformasi di Indonesia bagaimana perubahan museum di Indonesia? Pada era demokrasi yang lebih terbuka, pengelolaan museum dikembalikan kepada pemerintah daerah dan diharapkan untuk dapat menulis kembali sejarah lokal yang baru. Tak berhenti disitu, banyak museum-museum baru yang tumbuh berdiri memberikan kesegaran baru namun juga muncul museum yang berbau rezim Orde Baru turut didirikan sebagai upaya menuliskan narasi.

French South-West, especially the Dordogne region, is one of the richest European area of Palaeolithic sites, whether for human dwelling (including epony-mous and very famous sites like La Madeleine) as for Upper Palaeolithic rock art (of which Lascaux cave, Rouffignac cave, Font-de-Gaume cave, etc.). Those two categories are testimony of organization of daily life and livelihood strategies on one side, and the common system of values and meaning (culture) on the other side. Those two aspects are however very difficult to bring together. For adorned caves, it is often difficult to cross data coming from the walls and ground from a same decorated cave, data sometimes acquired separately. One way to deal with this problem is to develop a multi-disciplinary approach, which allows to combine rock art, archaeological and geological studies and which implies interactions and dialogs between many specialists. This goal, which goes be-yond simply providing archaeological and geological contexts for an image or a group of images, leads to the development of new approaches. Fig. 1. This paper proposes to present cases to the interdisciplinary study of the Great Saint-Front Cave (or Mammoths cave) and other adorned sites, studied within the frame of a collective research program, conducted from 2013 to 2016 and called Archologie des grottes ornes de Dordogne: cadre conceptuel, potentiel et ralit (Cave art archaeology: conceptual frame, potential and reality).

The purpose of this paper is to present the process of designing and developing a dynamic interface for an archaeological management system, with advanced possibilities of viewing, adding and modifying standardized sheets, created at a certain place, based on the coordinates extracted from the map. The main goal of the paper is to present the conception and implementing of the archeological management platform, along with the functionalities behind the composing elements and the classes which help in the process of data manipulation and database connections. This developing process also involved the integration of three modules. The developing process of these modules was based on the Three Layer Architecture and every one of the modules was designed separately. The database is the foundation of this project, because without it the main functionalities of this website wouldn't work. It was developed using the SQL scripting language with the help of the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 development kit. The initial design of its components was based on a standardized model of an analytical sheet of inventory, provided by the Architecture, Restoration and Archaeology Association. This analytical sheet is a standardized version which contains certain characteristic information associated with the archaeological site. The second module which help to the creation of this project is represented by the map, developed with the help of the Google Maps API. The technology provided by Google is highly complex, it offers us a lot of customizable functionalities, extensive documentation and the process of adding new functionalities is possible with the help of JavaScript in a relative simple way. The integration of the map within the interface it's possible with the help of a simple link-based reference, in order to get the needed data from the Google servers. Within this link, we have to summon a key, dynamically created in connection with our specified account. This is called an API key and its usage is that of counting the information traffic. If a certain traffic limit is reached or surpassed it is supposed that the application is not used in personal means and thus certain payroll may apply. In order to use the existing functions or overwrite them, we have to include another link referral to a JavaScript file, where some of the functionalities were already added by a teammate. Completion of this project involved passing through all the stages related to the development of a suitable software product, from its use planning, maintenance and creation of appropriate documentation, involving theoretical knowledge, technology and development. The original contribution of the papers consists in its interdisciplinary nature, given the scope of platform developed, able to provide deepen related information, closely related to the archeology, history and cultural heritage study. The application is in its prototype version and has great potential as a major exploit in the future.

Why research Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Scotland? Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology sheds light on the first colonisation and subsequent early inhabitation of Scotland. It is a growing and exciting field where increasing Scottish evidence has been given wider significance in the context of European prehistory. It extends over a long period, which saw great changes, including substantial environmental transformations, and the impact of, and societal response to, climate change. The period as a whole provides the foundation for the human occupation of Scotland and is crucial for understanding prehistoric society, both for Scotland and across North-West Europe. Within the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods there are considerable opportunities for pioneering research. Individual projects can still have a substantial impact and there remain opportunities for pioneering discoveries including cemeteries, domestic and other structures, stratified sites, and for exploring the huge evidential potential of water-logged and underwater sites. Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology also stimulates and draws upon exciting multi-disciplinary collaborations. Panel Task and Remit The panel remit was to review critically the current state of knowledge and consider promising areas of future research into the earliest prehistory of Scotland. This was undertaken with a view to improved understanding of all aspects of the colonization and inhabitation of the country by peoples practising a wholly hunter-fisher-gatherer way of life prior to the advent of farming. In so doing, it was recognised as particularly important that both environmental data (including vegetation, fauna, sea level, and landscape work) and cultural change during this period be evaluated. The resultant report, outlines the different areas of research in which archaeologists interested in early prehistory work, and highlights the research topics to which they aspire. The report is structured by theme: history of investigation; reconstruction of the environment; the nature of the archaeological record; methodologies for recreating the past; and finally, the lifestyles of past people – the latter representing both a statement of current knowledge and the ultimate aim for archaeologists; the goal of all the former sections. The document is reinforced by material on-line which provides further detail and resources. The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic panel report of ScARF is intended as a resource to be utilised, built upon, and kept updated, hopefully by those it has helped inspire and inform as well as those who follow in their footsteps. Future Research The main recommendations of the panel report can be summarized under four key headings:  Visibility: Due to the considerable length of time over which sites were formed, and the predominant mobility of the population, early prehistoric remains are to be found right across the landscape, although they often survive as ephemeral traces and in low densities. Therefore, all archaeological work should take into account the expectation of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ScARF Panel Report iv encountering early prehistoric remains. This applies equally to both commercial and research archaeology, and to amateur activity which often makes the initial discovery. This should not be seen as an obstacle, but as a benefit, and not finding such remains should be cause for question. There is no doubt that important evidence of these periods remains unrecognised in private, public, and commercial collections and there is a strong need for backlog evaluation, proper curation and analysis. The inadequate representation of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic information in existing national and local databases must be addressed.  Collaboration: Multi-disciplinary, collaborative, and cross- sector approaches must be encouraged – site prospection, prediction, recognition, and contextualisation are key areas to this end. Reconstructing past environments and their chronological frameworks, and exploring submerged and buried landscapes offer existing examples of fruitful, cross-disciplinary work. Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology has an important place within Quaternary science and the potential for deeply buried remains means that geoarchaeology should have a prominent role.  Innovation: Research-led projects are currently making a substantial impact across all aspects of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology; a funding policy that acknowledges risk and promotes the innovation that these periods demand should be encouraged. The exploration of lesser known areas, work on different types of site, new approaches to artefacts, and the application of novel methodologies should all be promoted when engaging with the challenges of early prehistory.  Tackling the ‘big questions’: Archaeologists should engage with the big questions of earliest prehistory in Scotland, including the colonisation of new land, how lifestyles in past societies were organized, the effects of and the responses to environmental change, and the transitions to new modes of life. This should be done through a holistic view of the available data, encompassing all the complexities of interpretation and developing competing and testable models. Scottish data can be used to address many of the currently topical research topics in archaeology, and will provide a springboard to a better understanding of early prehistoric life in Scotland and beyond.