The origin of peasant culture. Prehistory of knowledge of landscape resources in a perspective of continuity, surplus and prosperity

Abstract

A brief presentation of the studies on population and economy of Copper and Bronze Age in Italy introduces the transformations that took place in the third and second millennium BC and outlines the relationship between man and landscape. The emergence of stable and long-lasting villages invites us to identify the necessary conditions for the control and planning of the resources to achieve the subsistence of the communities that became more and more numerous and with a well-organized production. The proposal to identify a lifestyle that goes back to the roots of peasant civilization, at least starting from the Bronze Age, is based on the full awareness of skills and techniques in the management of forces and relationships between humans and plants or animals. This vision allows to verify in the archaeological documentation any possible line of research. The framework that can be obtained also helps to focus interdisciplinary disciplines in which methods of analysis and reconstruction of management systems identify next steps of the research in economic, demographic and social studies. The points, selected and expressed in the form of schemes and concept maps, will be useful for the discussion to identify which methods, tools and reasoning can help in defining the historical reconstruction and the many possible variants.

Keywords

• bronze age
• agriculture
• breeding
• surplus
• easant culture