Cultural Heritage, Landforms, and Integrated Territorial Heritage: the Close Relationship Between Tufas, Cultural Remains, and Landscape in the Upper Ebro Basin (Cantabrian Mountains, Spain)

Abstract

The heritage cannot be appreciated nor entirely understood without considering the genesis and evolution of natural elements. Four places located in the north of Spain are analyzed. They are featured by the importance of natural environment, as Pleistocene and Holocene tufa buildups, and the important cultural goods, vernacules, or belonging to Prehistoric, Middle Age, and Modern ages. The inventory and assessing of geomorphosites have been made, and their scientific, cultural, and use and management values have been analyzed. The protection laws and territorial planning were also analyzed to complete the study of cultural heritage. Finally, a scalar assessment, from facies to landscape and past and current uses, has been made. Tufas explain traditional land uses and landscapes from the Holocene to the present. They are complex units with functions as defence, hydraulic power, and agriculture, and they are divided in specialized internal areas depending on their natural and socio-economical features. Three cases of natural-cultural relationships can be identified: as hydraulic and agricultural resources (farmland, proto-industrial goods, or well organized plots), as defensive emplacements, and urban development conditioned by the use of the tufa for communications, strategic emplacements, hydraulic resources—watermills and proto-industrial fulling mills. All of them make up an integrated cultural ensemble, a heritage of high territorial and landscape value. The geomorphological elements are not just a context, they are part of the cultural monument, an essential and dynamic component. So, potentialities and limitations of use must be taken into account by territorial managers in the planning and interpretation of integrated geotouristic products. In all studied cases, we have detected that natural components are ignored in tourist, cultural, and territorial management.