Biodiversity and Temporal Diversity in Archeological Landscape: Towards a New Perception

Reflecting on some crucial issues about the protection, planning and management of archaeological landscapes from the disciplinary point of view of Landscape architecture, the paper aims to focus on the role of vegetal component and plant biodiversity in landscaping of archaeological sites. Trying to build a background framework of the theoretical, cultural and ecological relationships between vegetation and ruins and adopting the landscape architecture approach, the contribution proposes a set of conceptual and operational tools to deal with active and inventive conservation of archaeological landscapes, trying to adopt a “strong forward-looking" attitude, as recommended by the European Landscape Convention (Florence 2000). Starting from the consolidated concept of biodiversity (CBD 1992) and re-reading it according to a different research dimension the concept of temporal diversity has been explored and proposed as a key issue in interpreting and planning layered landscapes. Focusing especially on design issues in managing the integration between ruins and vegetation, an innovative approach is presented referring to the greenery-related various potentialities in landscaping and managing archaeological sites. As concluding remarks, the paper aims to open new trans-disciplinary windows of research on active and inventive conservation of archaeological landscapes, with the aim to foster further explorations in this potential and broad ambit of investigation.