Fragilità territoriale, resilienza demotica e spopolamento nell’Alta Valle dell’Aventino (Chieti)

Within the MAVA project, aimed at recovering the memory of the Abruzzese villages in the Upper Aventino Valley, previous communications have already outlined the rationale and methodologies that guided the research process. Currently, the investigation phase focusing on the gathering of data relevant to demotic history –an essential component of the project– is nearing completion. The millennia-long progression of this history is, unfortunately, affected by significant temporal gaps resulting from both recurring destructive events that have impacted the area, often with devastating force, and from its peripheral nature, which has left this territory so little known that it has attracted the attention of only a few sporadic researchers. Continuous habitation, difficult to precisely determine because specific evidence has been lost with each destructive event in this fragile territory, can nevertheless be fully appreciated through detailed research conducted by cross-referencing multiple data sources. Protohistoric, archaeological, and historical references emerge from fragmentary historicized testimonies, some of which are no longer verifiable due to their disappearance; further evidence can be inferred from the analysis of modern-era cartography cross-referenced with archival data and historical sources.