Changing the focus: On the agency of rural communities as active subjects of landscape modelling in the Basque Country

Abstract

Rural landscapes are the result of complex interactions between a given society and its environment. In the Basque Country, research on rural communities has considerably increased within the last years. As revealed by the diachronic analysis of the results of four different projects developed in the Atlantic region of the country, the local communities have developed successful adaptational strategies to different socio-economic circumstances over the last ∼2000 years. Instead of the traditional views on peasantry as a passive subject of History, the archaeological re-assessment of rural landscapes as potentially resilient environments opens new paths to study the role of local communities in their construction and reproduction over time.