On the Edge of Protection: Archaeology and Territory, Culture and Landscape

Abstract

This paper proposes an evaluation and re-reading of the common problems that characterise the difficulties in the practice of protecting and enhancing the territory, with particular focus on the archaeological field. Despite the widespread idea that archaeology should always be included in the territorial project, the link between protection and planning seems to be more evoked and required than programmed and realised. Current solutions define a concept of structured protection for the undifferentiated preservation of goods, where archaeological evidence with different characteristics (position, materiality, collective perception) seems to match univocal and indifferent solutions. This depends, of course, on what is meant to be protected: a single antique object may be subject to simple protection. However, everything is more complicated if the single monument turns out to be an area, an archaeological area, or where the object to be protected is the landscape. First of all, this is so because it is still extremely complicated to give it a unique and shared definition, secondly, because it is a theme that requires a review of the analytical approach, to subordinate it and make it operational on the observation scale. Therefore, this contribution attempts to provide a different approach to territorial analysis and to archaeological and landscape protection.