Published 2017-01-01
Keywords
- Landscape palimpsest,
- civilization,
- world heritage,
- mapping
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2022 European Journal of Geography

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Cultural heritage sites in the Mediterranean basin reflect long–term cultural and land-use
changes associated with different regional civilizations. We integrated data on historical
heritage sites and civilization areas using GIS-mapping and modeling. Analysis of the World
Heritage Database allows classifying 190 sites into eight cultural landscape categories – rock
paintings, remnants of ancient settlements, architecture monuments, monasteries/castles,
temples/necropolis, historical city centers, nature management systems, cultural landscapes,
and defining eight civilization époques – prehistorical, ancient, antique, early medieval, late
medieval, modern age, and recent. Each type of civilization change corresponds to a territory
where cultural landscapes of various eras are superimposed to form a landscape palimpsest,
including two- and three-layer systems formed under the impact of two or three civilizations.
The resulting map and data are useful for comparative studies focusing on the relationship
between the length of historical records and the “civilization” time-scale in which past
cultural landscapes existed.