Enclosed land in Croatia

Research: Goran Andlar, Filip Šrajer; upload: Bénédicte Gaillard.

The history of the Croatian Adriatic landscape is characterized by its borderline position between Mediterranean, Balkans and Central Europe, and consequently, the peripheral status within the great empires or states (Ancient Greece, Roman Empire, Republic of Venice, Ottoman Empire, Napoleon’s France, Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empire, Communist Block, Western World). Unstable political situation along the ever-changing borders, which have been laid mostly through the sparsely populated hinterland areas, favoured ancient forms of non-intensive transhumant sheepherding, while the politically more stable areas such as islands sporadically have suffered from greater demographic pressure and the “hunger” for the fertile land (Glamuzina and Fuerst-Bjeliš, 2015.).

Sheepherding has been the oldest factor in development of the cultural landscape on the wider scale, resulting in degradation of the indigenous forest vegetation very early in the history (Glamuzina and Fuerst-Bjeliš, 2015.). Some kind of enclosing is the necessary in many phases of the sheepherding, and in the absence of wood, it is logical to assume that the stone has been used from the very beginning. The first land cultivation happened in the Quaternary land deposits (dolines) and was probably also followed by dry stone walling, not only for protecting the cultivated land from animals’ trespassing, but also for depositing the excess rock from the soil. There is some evidence of underpinning masonry or dry stone enclosures in Neolithic settlements (Chapman et al 1996, Moore et al, 2007), as well as some general speculations about the early terracing in the Mediterranean in the Neolithic times (Hughes, 2005.), but the abundance of archaeological evidence of using the dry stone technique in the Adriatic Croatia comes from the Bronze and early Iron Age with the spread of Illyrian hillfort culture (Chapman et al 1996, Buršić-Matijašić, 2008 etc), including the finding of a bronze age livestock enclosure and dwellings (Chapman et al 1996, Batović, 2004, Sirovica, 2015). Many of hill forts still stand on top of the hills, and some of them have been used as shepherding enclosures in the later times.
 

Greek and Roman colonization period brought still visible evidence of rectangular dry stone demarcations of colonized agricultural lands: notable example is the Stari Grad Plain, known as Xορα Φαρου (Chora of Pharos), which is known and protected as UNESCO site for (Picture 8), with the 180x900m ortogonal grid, and several Roman agri (Suić, 2003.), with the 706x706 m ortogonal grid (Matijašić, 1998.). Picture 3 shows the remnants of Roman Centuriation which was and still is the basis of all the further layers of agricultural activities.
 

In the medieval period, the Euro-Mediterranean had flourishing agricultural production from the eleventh to thirteenth century due to the agrarian revolution and economic development (Delort and Walter 2002). In the eastern Adriatic, the development of agricultural communities was fostered by the establishment of medieval statutes, which, in some cases, regulated how agricultural land and dry-stone walls were managed. e.g., in the Dubrovnik Statute of 1272 the macera and mrgin are described along with the rules for their maintance while in Istrian Demarcation of 1325 and Hvar Statute of 1331 gromače and gomile, respectively, are mentioned as the territorial demarcation.
From the early fifteenth century onward, some eastern Adriatic islands have been targets of regional immigration after the Ottoman annexation of the Adriatic hinterland. The additional need for arable land was met by allocations (Latin: gratia) of former communal land (mostly pastures) to the new settlers for cultivation (Kasandrić 1978, Carter 1992; Kovačić 1993; Tudor 2004; Dokoza 2009).
 

During the mid-eighteenth century the Venice-Ottoman war has taken turn. The reclaimed hinterland was assigned by the Venetian state to the new settlers and local warlords, with the first written obligations to enclose the managed woods with (dry-stone) walls from the neighbouring pastures (The Grimani’s Law/Legge Grimani 1755-1956, in Soldo 2005.).
 

The last large-scale karst reclamation with extensive dry stone wall construction took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and was caused by large-scale environmental and socio-political events. Several pandemics of grapevine diseases that had first hit the leading winegrowing regions of France and Italy caused the great excess revenues for the winegrowers in the peripheral states, encouraging them to increase the vineyard area in Croatian Adriatic several times. The changes in the land taxation led to the changes in the pasture land ownership which resulted in the division and enclosement of the pastures on several Croatian islands (Trogrlić 1980; Kale 2006 and 2010; Kraljević 1994; Kulušić 2006; Žuvela-Doda 2008). This period of growth ended in a similar way: suddenly and as a result of larger events such as the First World War and the 1918 flu pandemic that led to a large-scale crisis that resulted in land abandonment and exodus (Kraljević 1994).
 

Much of the 19th century agriculture land, including enclosures, have never been reclaimed again. The spread of the industrialisation and urbanisation in the 20th century caused much of the arable land being transformed into settlements, while industrial agriculture favored lowlands areas and wire fencing over enclosures, terraces and other traditional dry-stone landscape structures. Today’s big agricultural undertakings mostly comprise the transformation of the former pastures into the fence-enclosed vineyards and olive orchards by the means of the heavy mechanization. However, upkeep of the traditional dry-stone enclosures is still the vital part of moderately successful sheepherding economies of several bigger Croatian islands and some tradition-oriented winegrowers.