Archeologia contemporanea nei contesti minerari della Sardegna. Ruoli e prospettive dell'intervento archeologico con le comunità, a partire dal caso del Sulcis-Iglesiente

Fabio Calogero Pinna;Mattia Sanna Montanelli

;Francesco Mameli

2024-01-01

---

Abstract

In Sardinia, due to a prolonged and extensive mining activity that lasted until the dawn of the new millennium, the study of the cultural palimpsests of mining contexts, both industrial and pre-industrial, through archaeological methods has experienced significant delays compared to other Italian and European mining regions. Although references to "mining archaeology" have not been absent in the public debate even after the cessation of mining activities, this field of study has long remained anchored to its contemporary industrial dimension and dominated by professions focused on social analysis, environmental restoration, conservation, territorial planning, and contemporary art. These fields were perceived as better suited than archaeology itself to interpret the "urgent need for recovery" of the foundational values of industrial mining communities, which were threatened by the profound social transformations triggered by deindustrialization in the last quarter of the 20th century. Moving beyond a somewhat misguided idea of "industrial archaeology," which tends to represent capitalist societies almost exclusively through their monumental traces and large-scale production processes, new approaches are emerging today. These approaches, inspired by virtuous experiences in some mining villages of the Sulcis Iglesiente and by an archaeology more attentive to the involvement of local communities in the care of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, are shaping an agenda for interventions in similar cases. This agenda aims to impact both research (documenting more fragile aspects, but rich in history, related to rural foundational settlements, human-environment relationships, social structures, mining healthscapes, etc.) and education (promoting heritage pedagogy as a way to access the cognitive components of archaeology, serving as a tool for decoding anthropized environments and revealing solutions to current needs already produced by previous generations in these territories).