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A poster titled “Plant communities and landscape diversity in NW Sicily: The MEMOLA EU FP7 Project case study” was presented at IV International Plant Science Conference (IPSC) held in Parma (Italy) on September 20-22, 2017. The poster focuses on the contribution of botany in the interdisciplinary debate of Memola Project and underline the role plant communities play in understanding the formative processes of the Mediterranean Landscapes.
The poster won the "Best Poster Award" of the Italian Botanical Society (among 145 participants).

In collaboration with the MEMOLA project, Dr Sandrine Paradise-Grenouillet, postdoctoral fellow of the Marie Curie European program, carried out the first research on the historical evolution of forests in the Euganean Hills. We leave some images about these investigations.

 

During 2016 the excavation at Pizzo Monaco took place during the month of July. 

The 3rd archaeological excavation campaign at Pago del Jarafí (Lanteira) took place from August 29th to October 7th of 2016. 

Participatory mapping workshop in Cáñar (Sierra Nevada, Spain), organized by Iecolab in collaboration with the MEMOLA project.

Two workshops about the role of local knowledge and perceptions on soil for the historical landscape configuration and the various management practices were carried out by UCO and ARQUEOANDALUSÍ in Calatafimi Segesta and Vita (10th and 11th March, respectively). Through participation of farmers from two study areas of Monti di Trapani, specifically Bosco di Angimbè and Baroni, a common knowledge and perception of the local soil types and their implications for the crop allocation and management were verified.

Hydraulic survey, along with an ethnographic interview, have been carried out during the month of February 2017 in the area of Calatafimi by the Univeristy of Granada and Arqueoandalusí. Fieldwork is focused on locating local water resources, such as fountains, springs, historic irrigation channels, irrigation pools, underground channels, among others.

The graphical table presented below shows the numerical basis of the archaeological evidence identified during the last hydraulic survey in the study area of Sicily (Monti di Trapani).

Pedologists of UNIPA have started the soil survey programme in the area of Monti Trapani (Sicily). Six soil profiles have been already described and sampled in the study area of “Baida” surrounding the archaeological site of Pizzo Monaco.

University of Palermo botanists team led the second cycle floristic surveys in Pizzo Monaco site. They conducted a comparative investigation between plants inside the archaeological site and plants of the surrounding plains in order to assess the ecological differences between environments with a different history.
An ineteresting finding is the presence of archaeophyte plants that, on Pizzo Monaco, are collected exclusively inside the medieval fortified granary area.

During 2015, a GIS map platform was designed, which is entirely dedicated to the research of MEMOLA project in the Upper Vjosa Valley. It represents a complex and versatile structure, currently holding a variety of information, such as the topographic elements, infrastructure, hydro networks, aerial photographs, archaeological data, and etc. 

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