CAMP combines cutting-edge approaches from Ethnoarchaeology, Archaeology, Earth Sciences, Biochemistry, Geography, and Geostatistics to identify chemical and biological markers of pastoral activities from the anthropogenic deposits and to use such markers to develop models for the interpretation of pastoral sites.

CAMP will study dryland pastoralism through a two-pronged approach:

  1. The ethnoarchaeological investigation of currently inhabited and abandoned pastoral settlements to identify the markers and create a reference framework to develop the interpretative models;
  2. The study of archaeological pastoral sites to generate a new archaeological record that will be interpreted by applying the models built in the ethnoarchaeological study.

The ethnoarchaeological work includes the detailed topographic mapping of sites’ features and a spatially-driven sediment sampling strategy. The mapping will allow for the spatial contextualization of the recorded activities and of the samples connected to such activities. All samples will then be chemically characterized using a portable X-Ray Fluorescence instrument (pXRF), and patterns of variance and co-variance will be explored by geostatistical modelling. Selected sediment samples will be subjected to specific tests to extract additional proxies (i.e., phytoliths, organic residues, isotopes). Such an approach will create a framework of reference for the interpretation of the archaeological record. The archaeological sites will be sampled using the same strategy and the presence and variability of identified markers scrutinized by means of the geostatistical models previously developed in the ethnoarchaeological investigation.