Investigación

Water management has been a crucial issue in the development of Mediterranean mountains landscapes. Traditional irrigation systems, such as small ditches, have made possible the development of different human activities and natural resources bound to their evolution.

Since antiquity, agriculture has had a significant impact on ecosystems in the Mediterranean basin, where water and soil resources are limited. Thus, to understand the current cultural landscapes, resulting from the sustainable interactions between people and nature, it is necessary to investigate the historical use and management of these resources.

The MEMOLA project carry out a wide ethnographic study within the cultural landscapes with aim to analize, understand and register the traditional strategies used by the local communities in order to manage their own agrosystems, especially the way in which they use the natural resources through ancient knowledges, the social organization and the common law that regulate the communal use of the resources, or the resilience capacity that these socio-ecological systems show to face with threat that affect their stability.

Entendemos la actividad arqueológica de una forma compleja e integral. De manera general podemos decir el proyecto MEMOLA se enmarca fundamentalmente dentro de la Arqueología del Paisaje. Entendemos este como fruto de un proceso coevolutivo y como síntesis de las relaciones sociales. El paisaje es, pues, un producto histórico y, como tal, parte de la cultura material de las sociedades que lo han construido a lo largo del tiempo.